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CAWNPOEE 



CAWNPGRE 



THE EIGHT HON. 

SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN, Bart. 



MACMTLLAN AND CO., LIMITED 

NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1894 



/ 



18985 



First Edition 1865; Second Edition 1866; Third Edition 1SS6; 
Fourth Edition 1894. 




PREFACE 



The Author of this work has made it his aim 
to preserve a scrupulous fidehty to the original 
sources of his information. The most trivial allu- 
sions, the slightest touches, are equally authentic 
with the main outlines of the stor}^ The autho- 
rities most frequently consulted are : 

1. The Depositions of sixty-three witnesses, 
Natives and Half-castes, taken under the direc- 
tions of Colonel Williams, Commissioner of Police 
in the North-West Provinces. 

2. A Narrative of Events at Cawnpore, com- 
posed by Nanukchund, a local lawyer. 

3. Captain Thomson's Story of Cawnpore. 

4. The Government Narratives of the Mutiny, 
drawn up for the most part by the civil officers 
in charge of the several districts. The Author 



vi PREFACE 

returns his most hearty thanks to Sir John 
Lawrence and the authorities of the Calcutta 
Home Office, who, at the cost of great trouble to 
themselves, supplied him with the copies of these 
invaluable documents reserved for the use of the 
Indian Government. 



I, Grosvenor Crescent, 
March, 1865. 



aONTENTS 



I 

PAGE 

The Station 1 

The Outbreak 53 

The Siege 97 

The Treacheey 162 

The Massaoiie 225 



CAWNPORE 

CHAPTER I 

THE STATION 

THE city of Cawnpore lies on the south bank of 
the Ganges, which at that spot is about a 
quarter of a mile in breadth, and this too in the dry 
season ; for, when the rains have filled the bed, the 
stream measures two thousand yards from shore to 
shore. And yet the river has still a thousand miles 
of his course to run before, by many channels and 
under many names, he loses himself in the waters 
of the Bay of Bengal. In old times an officer 
appointed to Cawnpore thought himself fortunate 
if he could reach his station within three months 
from the day he left Fort William. But tow-ropes 
and punt-poles are now things of the past, and the 
traveller from Calcutta arrives at the end of his 
journey in little more than thirty hours. 

By the treaty of Fyzabad, in 1775, the East Indian 
Company engaged to maintain a brigade for the 
defence of Oude. The revenues of a rich and 



2 CAWNPORE CHAP. 

extensive tract of country were appointed for the 
maintenance of this force, which was quartered at 
Cawnpore, the principal town of the district. In 
1801, Lord Wellesley, who loved to carry matters 
with a masterful hand, closed the mortgage, and the 
territory lapsed to the Company, who accepted this 
new charge with some diffidence. And thus it hap- 
pened that, ever since the beginning of the last 
quarter of the eighteenth century, Cawnpore had 
been a first-class military station. In the spring of 
1857 it had attained an importance to which the 
events of the following summer gave a fatal shock. 
The recent annexation of Oude was an additional 
motive for keeping a strong hold on Cawnpore ; for 
that city commanded the bridge over which passed 
the high-road to Lucknow, the capital of our newly- 
acquired province. At that time the station was 
occupied by three regiments of sepoys, the First, the 
Fifty-third, and the Fifty-sixth Bengal Infantry. The 
Second Cavalry, and a company of artillerymen, 
brought up the strength of the native force to three 
thousand men. Of Europeans and persons of Euro- 
pean extraction, there were resident at Cawnpore 
more than a thousand. There were the officers 
attached to the sepoy battalions ; sixty men of the 
Eighty-fourth regiment of the British Line ; seventy- 
eight invalids belonging to the Thirty-second regi- 
ment, which was then quartered at Lucknow, and 
was destined to pass through the most fearful trial 
from which ever men emerged alive ; fifteen of the 
Madras Fusiliers ; and fifty-nine of the Company's 
artillerymen : in all, some three hundred soldiers 
of English birth. Then there were the covenanted 



I THE STATION 3 

civilians, the aristocracy of Indian society ; the lesser 
officials attached to the Post-office, the Public 
Works, and the Opium Departments ; the Railway 
people ; the merchants and shopkeepers, — Euro- 
peans some, others half-castes, or, as they would 
fain be called, Eurasians. There, too, were the 
wives and little ones of the men of all these classes 
and grades, and in no slender proportion ; for among 
our countrymen in India the marriage state is in 
special honour. There likewise were a great number 
of half-caste children belonging to the Cawnpore 
school, who were soon to buy at a very dear price 
the privilege of being the offspring of a European 
sire. 

The military quarter was entirely distinct from the 
native city. And here let the reader divest himself 
at once of all European ideas, and keep clear of 
them during the whole course of this narrative. Let 
him put aside all preconceived notions of a barrack, 
— of a yard paved with rough stones, and darkened 
by buildings four stories high, at the windows of 
which lounge stalwart warriors in various stages 
of undress. Let him try to form to himself a 
picture of a military station in Northern India, for 
it was within the precincts of such a station that 
was played out the most terrible tragedy of our 
age. 

The cantonments lay along the bank of the river, 
over a tract extending six miles from north-west to 
south-east : for, wheresoever in Hindostan Englishmen 
make their homes, no regard is had to economy of 
space. Each residence stands in a separate "com- 
pound," or paddock, of some three or four acres, 



4 CAWNPORE CHAP. 

surrounded by an uneven, crumbling mound and 
ditch, with Ijere and there a ragged hedge of prickly 
pear. For all over India fences appear to exist rather 
for the purp<jse of marking boundaries than for any 
protection they afford against intruders. The house, 
like all houses outside the Calcutta Ditch, consists 
of a single story, built of brick, coated with white 
plaster; the whole premises, if the owner be a 
bachelor or a subaltern, in a most shabby and 
tumble-down condition. A flight of half a dozen 
steps leads up to a verandah which runs round three 
sides of the building. The noticeable objects here 
will probably be a native tailor, working in the 
attitude adopted by tailors in all lands where men 
wear clothes ; a wretched being, squatted on his 
haunches, lazily pulling the string of a punkah that 
passes through a hole in the brickwork into the 
Sahib's bedroom ; a Madras valet, spreading butter 
on the Sahib's morning toast with the greasy wing 
of a fowl ; and, against the windward wall, a row of 
jars of porous red clay, in which water is cooling 
for the Sahib's morning bath. 

The principal door leads at once into the sitting- 
room, a spacious, ill-kept, comfortless apartment ; 
the most conspicuous article being a huge, oblong 
frame of wood and canvas suspended across the 
ceiling, and the prevailing impression a sense of 
the presence of cobwebs. The furniture, which is 
scattered about in most unadmired disorder, is in 
the last stage of dilapidation. Every article in an 
Anglo-Indian household bears witness to the fact 
that Englishmen regard themselves but as sojourners 
in the locality wliere fixte and the (juartermaster- 



1 THE STATION 5 

general may have placed tlieiii. A large, rickety table 
in the centre of the room is strewn with three or four 
empty soda-water bottles, a half-emptied bottle of 
brandy, a corkscrew, glasses, playing-cards, chessmen, 
a Hindostanee dictionary, an inkstand, a revolver, a 
bundle of letters, a box of cigars, the suj^plement of 
BcWs Life, and a few odd volumes from the regi- 
mental book-club. Then there are eight or ten 
chairs, a good half of which might well claim to be 
invalided on the score of wounds and long service ; 
a couch with broken springs ; a Japanese cabinet, 
bought as a bargain when the old major was sold 
up; and an easy cane chair of colossal dimensions, 
the arms of which are j^iolonged and flattened, so as 
to accommodate the occupant with a resting-place 
for his feet. In one corner stands a couple of hog- 
spears, supple, tough, and duly weighted with lead 
and barbed with steel of proof; a regulation sword; 
a buggy- whip; a hunting-croj) ; a double-barrelled 
rifle and a shot-gun — weapons which the owner de- 
preciates as archaic. On nails driven into the plaster 
hang a list of the men in the company to which the 
young fellow is attached ; a caricature of the pay- 
master; a framed photograph of the cricket eleven 
of the public school where he was educated ; and, if 
he be of a humorous turn, the last •" wigging," or 
letter of admonition and reproof, received from the 
colonel of his regiment. 

In such a scene, and amidst such associations, 
does the English subaltern wear out the weary hours 
of the interminable Indian day; smoking; dozing; 
playing with his terrier; longing for the evening, 
or fur a call from a brother-officer, with whom he 



6 CAWNPORE CHAP. 

may discuss the Army List, and partake of the 
ever-recurring refreshment of brandy and soda- 
water ; lazily endeavouring to get some little insight 
into the languages of the hateful East by the help 
of a fat, fawning native tutor, and a stupid and 
indecent Oordoo work on mythology; pondering 
sadly on home landscapes and home recollections, 
as he gazes across the sharply-defined line of 
shadow, thrown by the roof of the verandah, into 
the out-door heat and glare; with no pleasanter 
object of contemplation than the Patna sheej) 
belonging to the Station Mutton Club, and his own 
modest stud, consisting of a raw-boned Australian 
horse and an old Cabul pony picketed under a 
group of mango-trees near the gate of the 
compound. 

The centre apartment is flanked on either side by 
a smaller chamber ; both of which are employed as 
bedrooms, if, for the sake of company or economy, 
our young friend is keej)ing house with some Addis- 
combe chum. Otherwise, the least desirable is set 
apart as a lumber-room ; though, to judge from the 
condition of the articles in use, it is hard to imagine 
what degree of shabbiness would qualify furniture 
to become lumber in Bengal. The door into the 
Sahib's bedroom stands open, like every other door 
in British India; the multitude of servants, and 
the necessity for coolness, forbidding the very idea 
of privacy. There stands a bedstead of wood, worm- 
eaten, unplaned, unpolished; inclosed on all sides 
with musquito-curtains of white gauze, the edges 
carefully tucked in beneath the mattress, through 
which is dimly seen the recumbent form of the 



I THE STATION 1 

Saliib, clad in a silk shirt and linen drawers, the 
universal night-dress of the East. The poor boy is 
doing his best to recover, during the cooler morning- 
hours, the arrears of the sleepless night, which he 
has passed in a state of feverish irritation — panting, 
perspiring, tossing from side to side in desire of 
a momentary relief from the tortures of Prickly 
Heat, the curse of young blood ; anon, sallying into 
the verandah to rouse the nodding punkah-puller, 
more happy than his wakeful master. Little of 
ornament or convenience is to be seen around, save 
a capacious brass basin on an iron stand, and half 
a dozen trunks, of shape adapted to be slung in 
pairs on the hump of a bullock. An inner door 
affords a view into a bath-room, paved with rough 
bricks; the bath consisting of a space surrounded 
by a parapet some six inches high, in which the 
bather stands while his servant sluices him with cold 
water from a succession of jars. It may be that 
on a shelf at the bed's head are treasured some 
objects, trifling indeed in value, but made very dear 
by association ; a few school prizes and leaving- 
books ; a few sheets of flimsy pink paperj closely 
written, soiled, and frayed at every fold ; one or two 
portraits in morocco cases, too sacred for the photo- 
graphic album, and the inspection and criticism of 
a stranger. There is something touching in these 
repositories, for they tell that, however much the 
lad may appear to be absorbed in the pursuits and 
pleasures of the mess-room, the jDarade-ground, the 
snipe-marsh, and the race-course, his highest thoughts 
and dearest hopes are far away in that land where 
he is never again to abide, until those hopes and 



8 CAWNPORE CHAP. 

iliouglits have long been tamed and deadened by 
years and troubles. 

Such are the quarters of a British subaltern. The 
home of a married jDair may be somewhat more 
comfortable, and the residence of a man in high 
office considerably more magnificent ; but the same 
characteristics prevail every^vhere. A spirit of scru- 
pulous order, and a snug domestic air, are not to 
be attained in an Indian household. At best a 
semi-barbarous profusion, an untidy splendour, and 
the absence of sordid cares, form the compensation 
for the loss of English comfort. Still, the lady must 
have her drawing-room, where she can display her 
wedding presents, and the purchases which she 
made at the Calcutta auctions during the cold 
season before last. The Commissioner must have 
his sanctum, where he can wallow in papers, and 
write letters of censure to his collectors, letters of 
explanation to the Kevenue Board, and letters of 
remonstrance to the local military authorities. The 
epicure cannot do without a roofed passage leading 
from his kitchen to his parlour; nor the sporting- 
man without a loose box for the mare which he has 
entered for the Planters' Plate at Sonepore. Then, 
too, gentlemen of horticultural tastes like to devote 
a spare hour to superintending the labours of their 
gardeners : and the soil at Cawnpore well repays 
attention. Most kinds of Euroj)ean vegetables can 
be produced with success, while jDeaches and melons, 
shaddocks and limes, grow in native abundance : 
together with those fruits which an old Qui-hye loves 
so dearly, but which to a fresh English palate are a 
poor substitute indeed for hautboys and ribstone 



I THE STATION 9 

pippius ; — the mango, Avitli a Havuur like iui})entme, 
and the banana, with a flavour like an over-ripe 
pear; the guava, which has a taste of strawberries, 
and the custard-apple, which has no perceptible 
taste at all. 

None of those institutions which render the 
ordinary life of the English officer in India some- 
Av^hat less monotonous and objectless Avere wanting 
at Cawnpore. There was a church, whose fair white 
tower, rising among a group of lofty trees, for more 
than one dull and dusty mile greets the eyes of the 
traveller on the road from Lucknow. That church, 
which has stood scathless through such strange 
vicissitudes, will soon be superseded by a more 
imposing temple, built to commemorate the great 
disaster of our race. There were meeting-houses 
of divers Protestant persuasions, a Roman Catholic 
chajDel, and a mission of the Society for the Propa- 
gation of the Gospel. There was a race-course, as 
there is in every spot throughout the East where a 
handful of our countrymen have got together; a 
theatre, where the ladies of the garrison with good- 
natured amusement witnessed cornets and junior 
magistrates attemjDting to represent female whims 
and graces; a Freemasons' lodge, where the work 
of initiation and instruction went merrily on in 
a temperature of 100° in the shade. There was 
a racket-court, and a library, and news-rooms, and 
billiard-rooms. There were the assembly-rooms, 
where dinners were given to ^^''^''^''^iiig Governors- 
General, and balls to high official dames, where 
c^uestions of precedence Avere raised, and matches 
made and broken. There Avas a breakfast club. 



10 CAWNPOKE CHAP. 

wliitlier men repaired after tlieir ride to discuss the 
powers tliat be over their morniiig toast, at that 
meal so dear to Britons from the Himalayas to 
Point de Galle, and from the Sutlej to Hong-Kong, 
whether, as throughout Bengal, it be termed "little 
breakfast," or, as at Madras, it be known by the title 
of " early tea." There was the band-stand, the very 
heart and centre of up-country fashion, where the 
wit and beauty and gallantry of the station were 
nightly wont to congregate. There was the ice-club, 
for the manufacture and supply of that luxury which 
becomes a necessity under the tropic of Cancer ; — 
which more favoured Calcutta obtains straight from 
the Canadian lakes, with Newfoundland codfish and 
Pennsylvanian aj^ples embedded in the crystal mass. 
The markets were well supplied with fish, flesh, and 
fowl, at a cost that would gladden the heart of an 
English housewife, though Anglo-Indians complain 
loudly of the rise in prices, and grumble at being 
forced to pay sixpence a pound for mutton, and 
three shillings for a fat turkey. In the game season, 
quails, wild ducks, snipe, and black partridges were 
cheap and abundant; and a dish of ortolans, a 
treat which in EurojDe is confined to Italian tourists 
and Parisian millionaires, was a common adjunct to 
the second course at Cawnpore dinner-tables. 

The quarters of the native troops presented a very 
different appearance from the English bungalows. 
Sepoy lines, generally speaking, consist of long rows 
of huts built of mud on a framework of bamboos, 
and thatched with straw. Every soldier has his own 
cabin, in which he keejjs an inconceivable quantity 
of female relations, from his grandmother down- 



I THE STATION 11 

wards. There lie rules supreme, for no Sahib, be 
he ever so enthusiastic on the subject of sanita- 
tion and drainage, would care to intrude upon the 
mysteries of a sepoy household. At the ends of 
each row stand the habitations of the native officers 
attached to the company : two or three cabins round 
a tiny court-yard, fenced in with a mud wall a few 
feet in height. The sepoy, unlike a European 
soldier, never becomes wholly military in his tastes 
and habits. The dearest ambition of a villager is 
to increase the number of huts on his little premises, 
and that ambition is not to be quenched even by 
drill and pipe-clay. 

Each of the regiments had a bazaar peculiar to 
itself, crowded with people employed in supplying 
the wants, and ministering to the pleasures of the 
battalion which honoured them with its patronage. 
Sutlers, corn-merchants, rice-merchants, sellers of 
cotton fabrics, of silver ornaments, of tobacco and 
stupefying drugs, jugglers, thieves, swarms of pros- 
titutes, fakeers, and Thugs retired from business, 
made up a motley and most unruly population, which 
was with difficulty kept in some show of order by 
the energy of Sir George Parker, the cantonment 
magistrate. The united crew of these dens of 
iniquity and sedition did not fall short of forty 
thousand in number. 

The sepoys were tall men, the average height in 
a regiment being live feet eight inches, and, seen 
from a distance, in their scarlet coats and black 
trousers, they presented a sufficiently military ap- 
pearance. But, on nearer inspection, there was 
something in the general effect displeasing to an eye 



12 CAWNPORE CHAP. 

accustomed to the iiieu of Aldersliot ciiid Olicilons. 
No Oriental seems at ease in European costume, — 
least of all in the Englisli uniform then so dear to 
the heart of the old tailor colonels. The native sol- 
dier in full dress wore a ludicrous and almost pathetic 
air of uneasiness and rigidity. His clothes hung on 
him as though he were a very angular wooden frame. 
Whether from consciousness of the figure which he 
cut in his red tunic, or from an instinctive fear of 
the contamination contained in Christian clotli, the 
sejDoy was no sooner dismissed from parade or re- 
lieved from guard than he hastened to doff every 
shred of the dress jDrovided by Government. Clad 
in the unprofessional but more congenial costiune 
of a very scanty pair of linen drawers, he might be 
seen now seated over a pile of rice or a huge ban- 
nock, cooked for him by the women of his family ; 
now, performing the copious ablutions, the obliga- 
tion to which constitutes the single virtue of his 
national religion ; now, submitting the crown of his 
head to the barber for a periodical shave; now, 
perchance, discussing with a circle of comrades the 
probability of the Emperor of the Russians joining 
with Brigadier Napoleon and the King of Roum in 
a scheme for destroying the power of the East Indian 
Comj)any. 

His pay was seven ruj^ees, or fourteen shillings, a 
month. Small as this sum may appear to us, it 
was amply sufficient to endow the sepoy with far 
higher social consideration than is enjoyed by a 
private soldier in European countries. The purest of 
pure Brahmins, his faitli forbade him from spending 
much money on the gratification of his appetite. 



T THE STATION 13 

The most confirmed govirmand in the battaUon could 
never dream of a better dmner than some coarse 
fisli from a Deighbouring tank, flavoured by a hand- 
ful of spices ground between two fragments of a 
Sfravestone abstracted from the last Eno^lish ceme- 
tery on the line of march. Such luxuries as these 
could be procured at a rate that left even the 
private soldier a large margin whence to provide 
for any other calls that might be made upon his 
purse. He accordingly was regarded as a very 
considerable personage by the native populace. A 
peasant-proprietor or small shopkeeper thought it 
no small honour to receive an offer of marriage for 
his daughter from a gentleman serving in the ranks 
of the Company's army, and the sepoy was not slow 
to make use of his matrimonial advantages. A 
column of native troops on the march was accom- 
j^anied from station to station by an endless string 
of small carts, each containing one or two veiled 
ladies, presumably young and pretty; one or two 
without veils, very indubitably old and ugly; to- 
gether with a swarm of dusky brats with enormous 
stomachs, stark naked, with the almost nominal ex- 
ception of a piece of tape fastened round the loins. 

In spite of his excellent pay, the native soldier 
was almost invariably deep in debt. A strong sense 
of family ties, an extreme generosity towards poor 
connections, is a marked trait in the Hindoo cha- 
racter. Whenever an Indian official steps into an 
income, relations of every degree flock from all parts 
of the continent to prey upon his facile affection, and 
the prospect of sharing the corner of a sepoy's hut 
and the parings of his pay proved sufficiently attrac- 



14 CAWNPOEE CHAP. 

tive to bring into cantonments herds of countr}- 
cousins from Eohilcund and Shahabad. Neither 
would seven rupees a month adequately defray the 
occasional extravagances enjoined by " dustoor " or 
custom : dustoor, the breath of a Hindoo's nostrils, 
the motive of his actions, the staple of his conversa- 
tion, the tyrant of his life. It has frequently happened 
that a private soldier has celebrated a marriage feast 
at a cost of three hundred rupees, to obtain which he 
must sell himself body and soul to one of those 
griping, ruthless usurers who are the bugbears of 
Oriental society. 

At the commencement of 1857, the condition of 
the native army was unsatisfactory in the highest 
degree. An impartial observer could not fail at every 
turn to note symptoms which proved beyond the 
possibility of a doubt that a bad spirit was abroad. 
But, unfortunately, those who had the best oppor- 
tunity for observing these spnptoms were not im- 
partial. The officers of the old Bengal army regarded 
their soldiers with a fond credulity that was above 
suspicion and deaf to evidence : and no wonder ; for 
on the fidelity of that army was staked all that the}- 
held most dear — professional reputation, social stand- 
ing, the means of life, and, finally, life itself. It was 
in deference to their pardonable but most fatal pre- 
judices that on this ominous subject silence was 
enforced during the years which preceded the out- 
break. It was to please their pride of class that the 
tongues of more discerning men were tied, and their 
pens blunted. It was in vain that General Jacob, 
the stout Lord Warden of the Scinde Marches, wrote 
and expostulated with all his native energy and fire. 



I THE STATION 15 

Threatened and frowned on by his employers, sneered 
at by his fellow-officers as an agitator and a busy- 
body, he was at length brought to acknowledge that 
the tone of the Bengal army was a matter on which 
a wise man did well to hold his peace. Sir Charles 
Napier, whose excellent military judgment, matured 
in European camps, revolted at a state of things so 
fraught with peril and scandal, learned too late that 
not even the glory of Meeanee could protect him from 
the consequences of having presumed to call in 
question the faith of the sepoy. As the only apparent 
effect of his admonitions the turbulent and warlike 
province of Oude was annexed to our territory, and 
the ranks of our army were swelled by the addition 
of thousands of disaffected native mercenaries. 

That discipline was lax, that insubordination was 
afoot had long been known by many who dared not 
speak out the truth. As far back as the year 1845 
there occurred a case in which a regiment broke into 
open mutiny, and pelted its officers through canton- 
ments with the material employed in road-mending, 
a customary missile in Bengalee riots. A party of 
native infantry on a night march presented an 
appearance, absurd indeed, but to a thoughtful 
spectator not without serious significance. The men 
struggled along, carrying in their hands some beloved 
pipe, their most treasured possession, while their 
muskets were carelessly flung into the bullock-carts, 
in which not a few sepoys were snoring comfortably 
amidst the baggage. Even those on foot dozed as 
they walked, with that unaccountable capacity, com- 
mon to all Hindoos, of going to sleep under the most 
adverse circumstances ; the collar of their great-coat 



16 CAWNPORE cHAr. 

turned up and kept in its place by a strip of calico ; 
their ears protected by folds of cloth passed under- 
neath the chin and fastened over the top of the head, 
with a regimental forage-cap perched on the summit 
of this unsightly and unmartial head-gear. In some 
corps men had so little respect for military rule and 
custom as to strip off their uniforms even when on 
guard. There were those who in great part attri- 
buted these irregularities to the abolition of corporal 
punishment effected by Lord William Bentinck, that 
wise and true friend of the native population of 
India. It is to be hoped, for the cause of humanity 
and enlightenment, that men who so think are mis- 
taken in their opinion. It cannot, however, be 
denied that, whatever be the reason, there was truth 
in the words spoken to a civilian by an old pensioned 
native officer : — " Ah, Sahib ! " said the veteran, 
"the army has ceased to fear." 

At the siege of Mooltan, where native troops from 
all parts of India were collected into one army, the 
vile temper of the Bengal sepoys and the extraor- 
dinary indulgence displayed towards them by their 
officers became painfully apparent. These insolent 
high-caste mercenaries positively refused to labour in 
the trenches, and endeavoured to induce or force 
the modest and trusty Bombay soldiers to follow 
their example. On one occasion a mob of these 
rascals, being unable to persuade a fatigue-party of 
Bombay men to strike work, proceeded to revile 
and at length to stone their worthier comrades. A 
captain in a rifle regiment marked the ringleaders, 
but the Bengal officers flatly declined to take any 
steps in the matter, and the story was hushed up 



1 THE STATION 17 

in order tluit their feelingH might be spared. And 
even in 1857, at the time when mutiny and murder 
were rife from Peshawur to Dacca, each 23articuk\r 
colonel was firmly impressed with the idea that his 
battalion would be the Abdiel of the army, faith- 
ful only to its oath and salt, to the recollections of 
bounty-money and the hopes of pension. ''Pity," 
writes an officer of the Sixty-fifth regiment, " that 
"Europeans abusing a corps cannot be strung up." 
On the 22nd of May a letter appeared in the Eng- 
lisJvman newspaper from Colonel Simpson, who com- 
manded the Sixth Bengal Infantry at the all-important 
station of Allahabad. He was very indignant at the 
suspicions which had been expressed concerning the 
intentions of the men under his charge, who, accord- 
ing to him, " evinced the utmost loyalty. So far 
" from being mistrusted, they are our main protec- 
" tion." Not many days after he was glad to escape 
into the fort with a ball through his arm, while his 
officers were being butchered by the men on Avlioni 
he had placed so unbounded a reliance. The 
" staunchness " of the sepoys was at that time so 
common a topic with their chiefs that the expression 
became a by-word among Calcutta people ; for at 
whatever station the colonel most loudly, per- 
tinaciously, and angrily declared his regiment to be 
" staunch," it was to that quarter that men looked 
for the next tidings of massacre and outrage. It 
was not till he saw his own house in flames, and the 
rupees from the Government treasury scattered 
broad-cast over the parade-ground — it was not till 
he looked down the barrels of sepoy muskets, and 
heard sepoy bullets Avhizzing round his ears, that an 



18 CAWNPORE CHAP. 

old Bengal officer could begin to believe that liis men 
were not as stauncb as tliey should be ; and yet, 
as will be seen in the course of this narrative, there 
might exist a degree of confidence and attachment 
which was proof even against that ordeal. 

Respect for the obligations of blood-relationship 
is so strong in the Hindoo mind, tliat jobbery and 
nepotism flourish in Oriental society to an extent 
which would seem inconceivably audacious to the 
colder imagination of a Western public servant. 
The system of family patronage runs through all 
ranks and classes. The Indian judge loves to sur- 
round himself with clerks of the court and ushers 
from the ranks of his own kindred. The Indian 
suj^erintendent of police prefers to have about him 
inspectors and sergeants, bound to his interest by 
nearer ties than those of official dependence. The 
head bearer fills his master's house with young 
barbarians from his native village ; and, in like 
manner, the veteran sepoys took measures to kee'p 
the regiment supplied with recruits from the neigh- 
bourhood in which they themselves had been born 
and bred. No strapping young Tewarry, or Pandy, 
who had a mind to shoulder a Company's musket 
and touch the Company's rupees, had long to wait 
for a place in the section of which the sergeant was 
his uncle and the corporal his brother-in-law. On 
the other hand, a stranger was soon driven from the 
regiment by that untiring and organized social op- 
pression, in which military men nearer home have 
sometimes proved themselves adepts. And so it 
came to pass in the course of time, that the com- 
pany partook of the nature of a family, and the 



i THE StATtON 1§ 

battcilioii of the nature of a clau. The consequence 
was, that there existed a sympathy and freemasonry 
throughout the ranks of quite another tendency from 
that tone of regimental patriotism and martial 
brotherhood, known in European armies by the title 
of esp^nt de corps. Such a state of things afforded 
peculiar facilities for conspiring. A disaffected body 
of sepoys possessed the power of a host, and the 
discretion of a clique. The most extensive and 
perilous designs could be matured in perfect secrecy^ 
and carried into effect by the weight of a vast and 
unanimous multitude, 

The real motive of the mutiny was the ambition 
of the soldiery. Spoilt, flattered, and idle, in the 
insolence of its presumed strength that j^ampered 
army thought nothing too good for itself, and 
nothing too formidable. High-caste Brahmins all, 
proud as Lucifer, they deemed that to them of right 
belonged the treasures and the empire of India* 
Hampered with debt, they looked for the day of a 
general spoliation. Chafing under restraint, they 
panted to indulge themselves in unbridled rapine 
and licence. They were bent upon the foundation 
of a gigantic military despotism. They looked for- 
ward to the time when Soubahdars and Jemmadars 
should be Maharajas and Nawabs ; when the taxes 
should be collected by sepoy receivers-general, and 
paid into sepoy treasuries ; when every private 
should have his zenana full of the loveliest daughters 
of Lahore and Eohilcund; when great landholders 
from Bundelcund and Orissa should come with cases 
of diamonds to beg a favourable decision from 
Mungul Pandyj when great merchants from Liver-' 



^0 CAWNPORE CHAP. 

pool aud Marseilles sliould come with bags of sove- 
reio'ns to ask leave of Peer Bux to establish a fac- 
tory at Mutlah or Chandernagore. They evinced 
an equal contempt for all the other classes of 
the inhabitants of India. They despised the ex- 
cellent armies of Bombay and Madras, and their 
insolence was requited with bitter aversion. They 
looked down on the Ghoorkas as savages, and pre- 
sumed to rec>'ard the heroes of Ohillianwallah and 
Ferozeshah as a conquered race ; as if it was 
sepoy prowess which, after more than one series of 
fierce and dubious battles, had prevailed over the 
brave and haughty warriors of the Punjaub ! And 
at length, in the plenitude of their pride and folly, 
they began to call in question the efficacy of the 
English name. 

We had, indeed, been negligent. We had been 
improvident even to madness. Some twenty thou- 
sand European troops were scattered over the con- 
tinent of India, for the security of which seventy- 
thousand are now held to be barely sufficient. In 
the May of 1857, from Meerut in the North-west, 
to Dinapore in the South-east, two weak British 
regiments only were to be found. In these days, 
a battalion of English infantry may be placed at 
any important city in our dominions within the 
twenty-four hours. Then, all the field-batteries 
throuGfhout the entire reoion of Oude, with a sino^le 
exception, were manned by native gunners and 
drivers. Now, in every station on the plains, the 
artillerymen, the trained workmen of warfare, with- 
out whom in modern times an armed force is helpless, 
are one and all our own countrymen. Then, our 



1 TTIE STATTOK 2\ 

onlv communication was aloncv roads which the first 

I/' o 

rains turned into strips of bog, and up rivers trea- 
cherous with crossing current and changing sand- 
banks. Now, through the heart of every province, 
there runs, or soon will run, those lines of rail 
and lines of wire, which defy alike season and 
distance, 

The natives of India possess a sharp insight into 
matters that come within the limits of their own 
sphere, but are strangely ignorant of all that passes 
beyond those limits. The sepoy ringleaders knew to 
a man the strength, or rather the weakness, of Euro- 
pean forces in the North of India. But, incredible 
as it may appear, they were firmly impressed with 
the idea that they saw with their eyes the whole 
extent of our resources. Public opinion in Hin- 
dostan placed the population of the British Isles at 
something over a hundred thousand souls. This error 
was so universal that a native who did not share in 
the hallucination was sure to be a man of superior 
discernment and rare strength of mind. Hyder Ali 
and Runjeet Sing, the Hannibal and the Mithridates 
of India, had often in their mouths the same phrase 
concerning the power of the Company, They feared, 
they would say, not what they saw, but what they 
did not see. Jung Bahadour, the far-famed Mayor 
of the Palace of Nepaul, when the first dull rumour 
of the coming crisis began to be bruited, paid a visit 
to England on purpose to learn for himself what the 
state of the case really was ; and returned firmly re- 
solved not to take part against a power which could 
raise at a pinch hundreds of millions of money, and 
hundreds of thousands of men, On one occasion 



22 CAWNPOPtE CHAP. 

during the troubles, a i^arty of sepoys attacked some 
guns worked by Sikh artillerymen, only to be beaten 
off with heavy loss. The officer in charge of the 
battery was much amused at hearing one of the men 
say to his comrades, " If those fools of pandies had 
" ever been at Battses' Hotel, Vere Street, Oxford 
" Street, they would not have come on so boldly." 
On inquiry, it appeared that this judicious Punjabee 
had gone to London in the service of some Anglo- 
Indian, where, as he stood at the mouth of Vere 
Street, he might see passing to and from Hyde Park 
in a single day as many Sahibs as would stock two 
such towns as Loodianah or Umritsur. 

The conviction that all our available male j^opn- 
lation was already in India began to be shaken as, 
regiment after regiment, brigade upon brigade, angry 
fighting men of Saxon race came pouring up from 
Calcutta in a continuous stream, by road, by rail, 
and by river. And yet that conviction lingered long. 
When the magnificent array collected for the final 
siege of Lucknow passed through Cawnpore, our 
Sikh allies would have it that Sir Colin, like the 
stage-manager at Astley's Theatre, marched his men 
in at one end of the town and out at the other, and 
then brought them back outside the walls to repeat 
the same manoeuvre. When the mutineers first 
caught sight of the Highland costume, they cried 
with joy that the men of England had been ex- 
hausted, and that the Company had been reduced to 
call out the women. They soon had reason to repent 
their mistake, and thenceforward adopted a theor}- 
more consistent with the fact, for they held that the 
petticoats were designed to remind their wearers that 



T THE STATION 23 

tliey had been sent to India to exact vengeance for 
the murder of the English ladies. 

The insolence and greed of the soldiers, their im- 
patience of discipline, and their lust of power, were 
the effective causes of the outbreak. But the proxi- 
mate cause was the fancied insult which had been 
offered to their national religion. Upon this most 
vexed question, a distinguished civil servant, who 
held high office in Calcutta during those eventful 
months, is wont to say that he could never trust the 
judgment of a man who maintains that the greased 
cartridges had little to do with the mutiny. The 
mind of the sepoy reeked with religious jDrejudice. 
He had adopted his profession in accordance with 
the dictates of his superstition. He belonged to a 
sacred order, and his life was one long ceremony. 
He could not j)repare his simple food without clear- 
ing for himself a separate plot of ground secure 
from the intrusion of others. Should a stranger step 
into this magic ring, the food which he had cooked 
was thrown untasted away. When some Bengal 
regiments were serving in China, it occasionally hap- 
pened that an unlucky native of the country, intent 
on theft or barter, set his profane foot within the 
hallowed circle, and was immediately saluted with 
a volley of threats and missiles from the outraged 
soldier whose meal he had spoiled. The bewildered 
wretch would take to flight across the camping-ground, 
plunging through the kitchens, defiling dinners by 
the score, and, in whatever direction he turned, 
rousing about his ears a swarm of indignant hungry 
Brahmins. Even if the sepoy was inclined to be- 
come lax in his observances, there were not wanting 



24 CAWNPORE cha?, 

ghostly advisers to check his latitiidinarian ten- 
dencies. A battahon on march was usually preceded 
by two or three fakeers, tlio bloated, filthy, sensual 
wandering friars of the East; wild-looking fellows, 
in orange or salmon-coloured linen, if by good luck 
they deigned to wear any clothes at all ; their locks 
of long hair matted in strange fashion with grease 
and dirt; their bodies sprinkled with ashes and 
daubed with coarse paint. So pernicious and irre- 
gular a custom was not tolerated in the Presidencies 
of Bombay and Madras : but in Bengal these fellows 
were highly regarded by the soldiers, and did duty 
as unofficial regimental chaplains, 

Five parts tallow, five parts stearin e, and one part 
wax, were the ingredients of that unsavoury composi- 
tion, the memory of which will henceforward never 
perish as long as England has history and India has 
tradition. Captain Boxer, of the Royal Laboratory 
at Woolwich, was quite unable to offer any decided 
opinion as to the particular description of animal 
from which the tallow was derived, but was certain 
that the mixture was innocent of hog's lard. Not so 
thought the Brahmins of the regiments stationed in 
the vicinity of the capital. From about the middle 
of January 1857 onward, certain vague and uncom- 
fortable paragraphs peer out from time to time in 
the Calcutta journals. " A rumour has been current 
"among the sepoys at Dumdum and Barrackpore 
"that they are to be baptized, and we hear that 
"they are greatly alarmed in consequence. It 
" should be explained to them that the only cere- 
" mony of the kind to which soldiers are required 
"to submit is the baptism of fire," Again, a letter 



I THE STATION 25 

from Barrackpore announces that 'M^ungalows here 
"are set fire to every night." On the lOfcli of 
February, " a Hindu " solemnly warns the Governor- 
General thus : " My Lord, this is the most critical 
" time ever reached in the administration of British 
"India. Almost all the independent native Princes 
"and Rajahs have been so much offended at the 
"late Annexation policy, that they have begun to 
" entertain deadly enmit}^ to the British empire in 
" India. Moreover, as for the internal defences of 
" the empire, the cartridge question has created a 
" strenuous movement in some portions of the Hindu 
"sejDoys, and will spread it through all their ranks 
"over the whole country to the great insecurity of 
"British rule." These notices, which we now read 
by the light of a terrible exjDerience, appear side 
by side with satirical poems on their more fortunate 
comrades b}^ military officers who cannot get civil 
employ; advertisements of a fancy fair for the 
advancement of native female education ; and a pro- 
position to appoint a committee of " eligible young 
civilians " to indemnify the ladies whose European 
bonnets have been ruined by the dust of the course. 
Ere many months were flown, eligible young civilians 
had far other matters to occupy their attention. 

At length, on the 26th of February, the Nineteenth 
Bengal Native Infantry, quartered at Berhampore, 
being directed to parade for exercise with blank 
ammunition, refused to obey the command, and in 
the course of the following night turned out with a 
great noise of drumming and shouting, broke open 
the bells of arms, and committed other acts of open 
mutinv. Bv order of the Governor-General the • 



26 CAWNPORE chap. 

regiment was disarmed, marched down to Barrack- 
pore, a distance of sometliing over a hundred miles, 
and there disbanded by Major-general Hearsey, who 
performed his trying task with energy, discretion, and 
courage. As yet there had been no blood shed ; but 
far worse was soon to come. The Thirty-fourth 
Native Infantry had for some time past been ripe 
for revolt. There were nearly six hundred high-caste 
men in the ranks, and the corps was stationed among 
local associations which fostered the most lively 
emotions in the minds of men in a state of high 
religious excitement. In the year 1825, Barrack- 
pore had been the scene of a military tumult which 
had been repressed with timely severity. One of 
the ringleaders, a Brahmin sepoy, had been hanged 
in the presence of his comrades. This man was 
regarded as a martyr; the spot where he met his 
fate, on the edge of a large tank, was still pointed 
out to each new-comer, and the brass implements 
with which he performed his acts of worship had 
been preserved in the quarter-guard as relics of the 
departed saint. 

The regiment was at that time coiiimanded by an 
officer who thus describes himself. " I beg to state 
" that it has been my invariable plan to act on the 
"broad line which Scripture enforces, that is, to 
" speak without reserve to every person. When I 
"therefore address natives on the subject of re- 
"ligion, whether individually or collectively, it has 
" been no question with me whether the person or 
"persons I addressed belonged to this or that 
"regiment, or whether he is a shopkeeper, mer- 
" chant, or otherwise, but I speak to all alike, 



T THE STATION 27 

'' as sinners in the sight of God ; and I have no 
''doubt that I have often in this way (indeed, am 
''quite certain,) addressed sepoys of my own 
^'regiment, as also of other regiments at this 
"and other stations where I have been quartered. 
"... As to the question whether I have endeavoured 
"to convert sepoys and others to Christianity, I 
" would humbly reply that this has been my object ; 
"and, I conceive, it is the aim and end of every 
" Christian who speaks the Word of God to another, 
"namely, that the Lord would make him the 
" happy instrument of converting his neighbour 
"to God." 

On the 29th of March, a private of the Thirty- 
fourth, Mungul Pandy by name, under the combined 
influence of religious frenzy and intoxicating drugs, 
took into his head to swagger about in front of the 
lines, musket in hand, bawling : " Come out, you 
" blackguards ! The Europeans are upon us ! From 
" biting these cartridges we shall become infidels ! 
" Get ready ! Turn out, all of you ! " This conduct 
in the course of time brought down upon him the 
Adjutant and the Sergeant-major, which in no wise 
disconcerted Mungul Pandy. He shot the officer's 
horse, disabled his bridle arm, and finally, with the 
assistance of some of the boldest among his com- 
rades, desperately wounded and drove off both the 
Europeans. The Colonel next appeared on the 
stage. Here again it may be best to quote his 
own words : " The native officer at length ordered 
" the guard to advance. They did so, six or seven 
" paces, and halted. The native officer returned to 
"me, stating that none of the men would go on. 



28 HAWNPORE chap. 

" I felt it was useless going on any further in the 
" matter. Some one, a native in undress, mentioned 
"to me that the sepoy in front was a Brahmin, 
"and that no one would hurt him. I considered 
"it quite useless, and a useless sacrifice of life, to 
" order a European officer with the guard to seize 
"him, as he would, no doubt, have picked off the 
" European officer, without his receiving any assist- 
^' ance from the guard. I then left the guard, and 
" reported the matter to the Brigadier." 

Fortunately there was at hand a man who had 
no scruple about the life of at least one European 
officer. Before many minutes had elapsed General 
Hearsey rode on to the parade-ground, and found it 
already covered with an agitated mob of sepoys, 
amono"st whom mio^ht here and there be seen an 
English officer doing his best to prevent his men 
from following the example of Mungul Pandy, who 
had by this time reloaded his musket, and was now 
stalking about in the presence of his regiment, 
which had got together round the quarter-guard, 
brandishing his dripping sword, and shouting: 
"You have excited me to do this, and now, you 
" blackguards, you will not join me ! " An officer 
called out to Hearsey, " Have a care ! His musket 
" is loaded ! " The General replied, " Damn his 
musket ! " an oath concerning which every true 
Englishman will make the customary invocation to 
the Recording Angel. 

Hearsey summoned the guard to advance, but the 
native officer answered as before. The General, 
however, by a significant motion of his revolver, 
oave the Jemmadar to understand that this time 



1 *rHE STATION 29 

lie Lad to deal with a mau of a very diti'ereut stamp 
from the Colonel. The guard, accordingly, went 
forward ; the Jemmadar in front, watched on either 
side by a young Hearsey, pistol in hand. Their sire 
himself rode straight at the mutineer, who, seeing 
that the game was up, turned the muzzle to his own 
breast, touched the trigger with his toe, and fell 
severely hurt. He was secured, and conveyed to 
the hospital ; and the concourse dispersed quietly 
to their lines, after having been roundly taken 
to task by the General for their cowardice and 
unsoldierlike behaviour in standing by without 
moving a linger while their officers were being cut 
to pieces. 

Mungul Pandy was condemned by court-martiul, 
and duly hanged on the 8th of Ajjril. At first there 
was some difficulty about finding an executioner. 
Public opinion had become less squeamish before 
the year was out. From this miserable fanatic was 
taken the name of " Pandy," which in Anglo-Indian 
slang signified mutineer. 

Seven comjDanies of the Thirty-fourth regiment 
were disbanded, after all pecuniary claims had been 
discharged. The closing effect was dramatic enough. 
General Hearsey made the men a spirited harangue, 
reminding them of their misdeeds, and giving some 
hints as to their future conduct which they would 
have done well to have laid to heart. Then came 
the parting; not without tears, it is said, on both 
sides. The sepoys stripped off their accoutrements, 
and were ferried across the river, bao- and bao'sage, 
in Government steamers, and there sent about their 
business; In order to disprove the report that the 



30 CAWNPORE chap. 

Compciny litid de«igns against their religion, tliey 
were informed that every facihty would be afforded 
them for visiting Hindoo shrines of repute before 
they bent their steps towards their villages in Oude 
and Bahar. 

Unfortunately for themselves, the men of the two 
regiments broken up at Barrackpore were bent upon 
doing a far less innocent service to the cause of 
their faith than that of feeing, out of the arrears of 
their pay, the priests of Juggernauth and Tripety. 
The most active and determined among their number 
deliberately proceeded to spread over the whole 
continent of India the tidings of the late occur- 
rences, told with more than Oriental exaggeration, 
and received with more than Oriental credulity. No 
society of rich and civilized Christians, who ever 
undertook to preach the gospel of peace and good- 
will, can have employed a more perfect system of 
organization than was adopted by these rascals, 
whose mission it was to preach the gospel of sedition 
and slaughter. By twos and threes, in various 
disguises, and on divers pretexts, they found their 
way to every native regiment in the three Presi- 
dencies. Wherever they went they related how 
the Queen of England had commanded that the 
Hindoos and Mussulmans of India should be made 
Christians, come what might; how the Governor- 
General, the Great Lord Sahib, had remonstrated 
with her, saying that he must first slay three 
hundred thousand holy and learned men of both 
religions ; how the Queen had rejoined, " Let it then 
be done ; " how the Great Lord Sahib had resolved 
to begin with the army, and had ordered the troops - 



I THE STATION 31 

tu bite cartridges smeared witli the fat of cow and 
j)ig; how the sepoys at Barrackpore had bravely 
resisted the tyrannous and accursed mandate; how 
some had testified to the death, and some had 
suffered bonds and scourging, and all had been 
dejDrived of their rank and calling, and robbed of the 
pensions which they had earned by valour and 
fidelity and ancient service. Then their hearers 
were warned that a like fate was in store for all; 
that a strenuous and united effort could alone save 
their freedom and their religion ; and that the hour 
was fast apj)roacliing when the Brahmins of the 
army must rule, or be for ever slaves and Christians. 
Sometimes it was a cou^Dle of fakeers perched on 
an elephant; sometimes a party of country-people 
on their way to the Ganges for their annual dip in 
the sacred stream; a gang of gipsies; a string of 
camel-drivers; or a troo23 of musicians escorting a 
celebrated nautch-dancer to her home in Cashmere 
after a successful season in Bengal. However it 
might be, it invariably happened that, a few hours 
after the strangers had entered the station, the 
bazaar and the cantonments were in a ferment of 
gossip and conjecture ; the sepoys at once grew sulky 
and idle; the Mohammedans of the town became 
insolent, and the Hindoos pert. The very domestic 
servants appeared to share the contagion ; the cooks 
got drunk, and the grooms stupid ; the water-carrier 
omitted to fill the bath, and the butler to ice the 
Moselle ; the peon spent twice his usual number of 
hours in conveying a note to the next compound but 
one; while the bearers delighted to insult their 
mistress by smoking under her window, and coming 



32 CAWNPORE 



CHAP. 



baielieaded into lier presence, wlieuever the fSiiliib 
was well out of the Avay. 

To us, who from the standiug-jioint of complete 
and certain knowledge look back upon that March 
and April pregnant with a great and sombre future, 
it seems indeed miraculous that our countrymen 
then resident in India should not have entertained 
a suspicion of what those months would bring forth. 
It ajDj^ears incredible that the officers should have 
lived their ordinary lives ; hunting ; dining ; dancing ; 
speculating on the probable height of the thermo- 
meter, and the possible chances of promotion ; while 
within a few yards of their quarters the men were 
debating the programme of the coming mutiny; 
arranging who was to shoot down the Adjutant, and 
who was to fire the thatch of the Colonel's bungalow ; 
discussing their hopes of assistance from Gwalior, 
Nepaul, and St. Petersburg. Can it be believed 
that morning after morning our countrymen looked 
down the row of dark laces and gleaming eyes, and 
never dreamed that in all that array, so fair and 
orderly to view, any heart beat with a loftier 
ambition than could be satisfied by a stripe or an 
epaulette; with a deadlier malice than might be 
gratified by the disappointment of some rival in 
the good opinion of the Soubahdar ? And yet so it 
was. In sj^ite of all that was said and written 
concerning the childlike docility of the affectionate 
sepoy, confidence and regard did not exist between 
the officer and the soldier. That the case had once 
been far otherwise was acknowledged on all sides, 
and the change was noted by military men of the 
old school with regret, qualified by a slight tincture 



1 THE STATION 33 

of self-satisfactiou. Young subalterns retorted that 
the ancient intimacy between superior and inferior 
was connected with the loose habits which disgraced 
Anglo-Indian society in days gone by, when the 
soldier pandered to the vices of his officer, or, at 
any rate, was cognizant of their existence. Those 
who have studied cause and effect will be slow to 
accept the theory that this estrangement between 
the mess-room and the lines was in any great 
measure due to the increased morality of the Indian 
army. 

The root of the evil lay in the withdrawal of 
officers from regimental duty for employment on the 
staff and in the civil posts; a custom so dear to 
all who bore the great and time-honoured names, 
which had been conspicuous in the Court of Directors 
and at the Calcutta Council-board as far back as 
the time of Barwell and Warren Hastings. And 
yet, though family interest received due considera- 
tion from those who dispensed the good things of 
the service, it was unfortunate for the efficiency of 
the Bengal army that merit did not go without 
a share in the loaves and fishes. A young man 
on the threshold of his profession was recommended 
by his father, and entreated by his sisters, skilled 
like all Anglo-Indian ladies in the inscrutable 
mysteries of official success, to get away from his 
regiment as early as possible. The teaching of his 
relations was enforced by the golden words which 
dropped from the lij^s of the Chairman of the 
Honourable Court, when, on the prize-day at Addis- 
coinbe, the lad stood forth blushing with modest 
pride, the Pollock medal in his hand, the sword of 



34 CAWNPORE chap. 

honour under liis arm, and a pile of military liistories, 
emblazoned Avitli tlie arms of the academy, on the 
table before him. After his arrival on Indian shores, 
the same advice was impressed upon him by his uncle 
the Sudder judge, his cousin the junior-secretary, 
and his school-chum the probationary-sub-assistant- 
commissary-general. 

Rich were the prizes open to the aspiring cadet : — 
rich, but far from rare. There were the political 
agencies at the courts of Holkar and Scindiah ; 
at the seats of the ancient and romantic dynasties 
of Rajpootana; at that European station whence, 
in dangerous proximity, an English resident still 
watches with anxious glance the intrigues and feuds 
which agitate the nest of Arab and Rohilla cut- 
throats, who protect and terrify the Nizam of Hyder- 
abad. There were the Deputy-Commissionerships 
of Oude and the Punjaub, whose occupants enjoyed 
a salary almost equal to that of a Collector in the 
more settled provinces, with a far greater share of 
power and resjDonsibility. There were the posts 
in the branches of administration more exclusively 
military : the Departments of the Adjutant-General, 
the Quartermaster-General, the Commissary-Gen- 
eral, and the Judge-Advocate-General. Finally, 
there were the numerous irregular corjDs in the 
Deccan and on the North-west Frontier, to each of 
which were attached some three or four captains 
and subalterns, who fully api^reciated the increase 
of their pay, and the excitement afforded by their 
critical and interesting duties. In short, appoint- 
ments which enabled officers to make money and 
reputation faster than was possible for their less 



I THE STATION 35 

fortunate bretlireii who remained in tlie line, were ho 
numerous that, after family claims had been satisfied, 
the surplus sufficed to absorb all the most promis- 
ing and pushing youngsters in the Bengal Military 
Service. 

It was not only that this system drained the army 
of individual zeal and talent. The j)rofessional spirit 
of the mass could not thrive under so bliohtino- 
an influence. The officers j)resent with the corps 
gradually ceased to take pride in the conscientious 
performance of their regimental duties; for their 
employment upon those duties was a standing proof 
that they were wanting in ability and high official 
connection. It was very difficult to throw much 
energy and enthusiasm into such work as escorting 
treasure, guarding jails, inspecting the cross-belts 
and listening to the grievances of sepoys, while 
a junior lieutenant in the same battalion was 
coercing refractory Rajahs, or scouring the border 
at the head of five hundred wild Pathan horsemen. 
What wonder if, under these circumstances, men 
became sick at heart ? Disgusted at their position, 
they no longer made the welfare and happiness of 
their soldiers an all-important object : and neglect 
often deepened into aversion and contempt. The 
cadets, as was only too natural, caught the pre- 
vailinof tone. Youno' men fresh from home are so 
shocked at the apparent deficiency in the Hindoo 
character of manliness, honesty, and self-respect, 
tlie qualities which Englishmen most regard, that, 
so to speak, their better impulses are apt to render 
them careless of the rights and sentiments of the 
native population. " Do I not well to be insolent ? " 



86 CAWNPORE chap. 

is a question asked daily, in a more or less logical 
form, by too many of onr countrymen in India. 
It requires a larger stock of philosophy than gene- 
rally falls to the share of a lad of nineteen in 
a new red coat, with his first month's pay in the 
pocket, to realize the conviction that an imperial 
people, who undertake to govern others, must first 
govern themselves; and that it is the height of 
lolly and cruelty to subjugate a hundred millions of 
men, and then abuse them because they are as God 
made them, and not as we would fain have them. 

And so it came to pass that to be sent back to 
head-quarters was " a shame," regimental duty was 
"a bore," and the sepoys were "niggers." That 
hateful word, which is now constantly on the tongue 
of all Anglo-Indians, except civilians and mission- 
aries, made its first appearance in decent society 
during the years which immediately preceded the 
mutiny. In a Bengal corps, whether he were a 
grey-bearded Mohammedan soubahdar, the arbiter 
and exponent of regimental custom and tradition, 
or a high-caste Rajpoot, or a Sikh veteran marked 
with the scars of Sobraon; every man knew well 
that he was dubbed "nigger" by some slip of an 
ensign, who could not tell his right hand from 
his left in any Oriental language. In such an 
atmosphere how could mutual attachment exist, or 
mutual confidence ? How could there not exist 
dislike and disaffection ; the bitterness of injured 
j^ride, and of feelings misunderstood or heedlessly 
contemned ? 

There Avere usually some eight or nine officers 
actually doing duty with a battalion. A colonel and 



I THE STATION 37 

doctor, three or four captains and lieutenants, and 
three or four ensigns, formed what was in those 
days considered to be a very respectable comple- 
ment. The other members of the mess were 
far away from head-quarters, inditing minutes at 
Calcutta, deciding suits in some distant non-regula- 
tion province, or tracking the course of the Nile 
through the deserts of Nubia. Such, however, was 
not imiversally the case. Here and there might be 
found a corps where the regimental tone, that un- 
written and impalpable law, not passed in words, 
nor enforced by overt penalties, but obeyed in silence 
and without question, had ordained that staff em- 
ployment was not a legitimate object of ambition. 
The officers plumed themselves upon keeping all 
together, and rising one with another in the ordinarj^ 
course of promotion. They shot tigers, and speared 
hogs, and played whist and billiards, and meanwhile 
looked well after their companies, and contrived to 
know something about the private histor}^ and 
character of every man under their command. They 
voted it unfashionable to attempt to pass examina- 
tion in Hindostanee, success in which was an in- 
dispensable qualification for the staff: an ordeal 
familiarly known as the P. H, ; that pair of conson- 
ants which are seldom far from the lips, and never 
out of the thoughts of the more asjDiring subalterns 
of the Bengal Army. And yet, averse as they were 
to grammars and dictionaries, these men spoke the 
vernacular languages with rare facility. But not 
even to such officers as these was breathed a syllable 
of that fearful secret, which England would have 
cheaply bought at the price of n, million pounds for 



38 CAWNPORE chap. 

a single letter. Their soldiers entertained towards 
tliem a strong and genuine regard. It was not 
among the ranks which they commanded, that the 
spirit of sedition was born and nurtured. But in 
the day of wrath there was no distinction of person. 
When the baneful sirocco of mutiny, called by the 
imaginary Hindoo " the Devil's Wind," was abroad 
in the air, all milder influences yielded before its 
withering blast. The consciousness of the authority 
of the '' Fouj ki Bheera," or "general will of the 
army," was to individual men, or regiments, almost 
irresistible. Some troopers in Fisher's Irregular 
Cavalry performed a signal act of gallantry at Luck- 
now, during the early days of the outbreak, for 
which they received a handsome reward. While 
waiting for their money in the verandah of the 
commissioner's house, they fell into conversation 
with certain of their fellow-villaoers amono- his ser- 

o o 

vants. " We like our Colonel," said they, " and will 
''not allow him to be harmed; but if the whole 
" army turns, we must turn too." A week elapsed, 
and these men looked quietly on from their saddles, 
while Colonel Fisher was shot to death by a scoundrel 
in the lines of the military police. Then they threw 
aside all semblance of discipline, murdered the 
second in command, and shouted to the Adjutant, 
who was a general favourite, to ride and begone if 
he desired to spare them the pain of taking his 
life. At one large station the men were in open 
mutiny, and the officers had grouped themselves in 
front of the battalion, expecting every moment the 
fatal volley. They agreed, however, not to abandon 
liope until they had witnessed the effect produced 



I THE STATION 39 

by the presence of a Captain of old standing in the 
service, who was apparently loved and trusted by 
the whole regiment, and especially by the grenadier 
company, to which he had been attached for many 
years. When his approach was announced, every 
eye turned towards his bungalow, which stood on 
the parade-ground, close to that flank where the 
grenadiers were stationed. He had not gone ten 
paces down the line before he fell dead, pierced by 
a bullet from the ranks of his own command. 

In every regiment there was a Soubahdar-major, 
or native colonel ; and in every company a Soubah- 
dar, who answered to a European captain, and a 
Jemmadar, who answered to a European subaltern. 
These were the commissioned officers who wore 
swords and sashes, sat on a court-martial, and were 
saluted by the rank and file. They had one and all 
carried the musket, and there was no approach to 
friendship or even to familiar intercourse between 
them and their Saxon brethren in arms, who con- 
sidered that, if they offered their Soubahdar a chair 
during an interview on regimental business, quite 
enough had been done to mark the difference 
between a commissioned and a non-commissioned 
sepoy. The sergeant and the corporal were repre-. 
sented by the havildah and the naick ; titles which 
make the list of killed and wounded in Indian 
battles so bewildering to an English reader. Thus 
the Brahmin battalion had a complete outfit of 
Brahmin officers, and this it was that rendered the 
rebellious army so terribly efficient for evil. When 
every Englishman in a corps had been murdered or 
scared away, the organization none the less remained 



40 CAWNPOPvE CHAr. 

intact. The regiment was .still a military machine 
finished in every part, compact, flexible, and capable 
as ever of a great and sustained exertion of strength 
and courage. This imperfect, but, it is to be feared, 
tedious sketch of the composition of our native force, 
as it existed before the mutiny, may well be closed 
with the oracular words of Sir Charles Napier, the 
Cassandra of the old Bengal army : " Your young, 
'' independent, wild cadet, will some day find the 
" Indian army taken out of his hands by the Sou- 
"bahdars. They are steady, respectful, thoughtful, 
" stern-looking men ; very zealous and military : the 
" sole instructors of all our soldiers." 

The native town of Cawnpore contained sixty 
thousand inhabitants. It possessed no architectural 
beauties worthy to detain the traveller who, from 
those stately landing-j)laces whence rise, tier above 
tier, the shrines and palaces of Benares, was hurry- 
ing on towards the ineffable glories of Agra. The 
most remarkable feature was a spacious boulevard, 
more than a hundred feet in breadth, called the 
Chandnee Choke, or street of silver. This name, 
common to the principal avenue in all the great 
cities of the north-west, is a monument of the days 
of bad government, and a primitive commercial 
system. When banks were few and robbers bold 
and numerous, men preferred to have some part of 
their wealth about their persons, and in a jDortable 
form. The farmers and the shopkeepers were wont 
to convert their superfluous ruj)ees into ornaments 
of fantastic design for themselves, their wives, and 
their children. The custom still holds ; and the 
unceasing flow of silver towards the East is largely 



I THE STATION 41 

accounted for by the fact that the Indian peasant 
to this day continues to invest his earnings on the 
wrists and ankles, the ears and noses of his family. 
Cawnpore was noted for the excellence and cheap- 
ness of all articles made of leather — saddlery, boots 
and shoes, bottle-covers, helmets, and cheroot-cases. 
The manufacture was introduced by a colony of 
Chinese, the frugal and industrious Lombards of 
India, who settled in the bazaar many years ago. 
A subaltern could buy a set of harness for his buggy 
at something under three pounds, and thoroughly 
?quip his hack for half that sum : and, if he was not 
very particular about shape and colour, he might 
pick up a serviceable country-bred horse for a 
hundred rupee note. 

The city had an evil reputation. Situated on 
the frontier of two distinct jurisdictions, it swarmed 
with rascals from Oude, on their way to seek ob- 
scurity in British territory, and rascals from our 
north-west provinces, on their way to seek impunity 
in the dominions of the Nawab. Oonao, the half- 
way house on the road which led from Cawnpore to 
Lucknow, gave a name to a" class of murders of 
peculiar atrocity. On and about that highwa}- were 
constantly found the dead bodies of travellers ; 
sepoys, for the most part, returning to their villages 
with their savings and the voucher for their pension. 
In most cases a rope was drawn tightly round the 
neck, but the surgeons who conducted the inquests 
gradually came to be of opinion that the victims had 
been poisoned, or, at any rate, stupefied, b}' being 
induced to smoke tobacco mixed with a noxious 
drug. The police exerted themselves in vain to 



42 CAWNPORE chap. 

obtain a clue to the mystery. Whenever a fresh 
officer of note was appointed to the district, the 
murderers made a point of presenting him with a 
" nuzzur," or " offering," in the shape of a larger 
than usual batch of corpses. The difficulty of 
detection was increased by an odious custom well 
known to all Anglo-Indian magistrates, which here 
flourished with extraordinary vigour. A malicious 
Hindoo will deliberately mangle the body of a per- 
son who has died from a natural cause, and fling it 
on the ground of some neighbour to whom the 
scamp may happen to bear a grudge. The un- 
fortunate recipient finds himself involved in the 
consequences dreaded by the poor people in the 
Arahian Nights, when the hunchback was choked by 
a fish-bone beneath their hospitable roof. 

Bajee Rao, the Peishwa of Poonah, was the last 
monarch of one of those great Mahratta dynasties 
which long shared the sovereignty of the Central 
Highlands and the plunder of all Hindostan. So 
near a neighbour could not fail to be guilty of the 
amount of " treachery," " faithlessness," and " bad 
internal government,'^ necessary to justify the an- 
nexation of his dominions. We dethroned Bajee 
Rao, confiscated his territories, and assigned him a 
residence at Bithoor, a small town twelve miles up 
the river from Cawnpore. Here he lived until his 
death in princely state, inasmuch as the Company 
always behaved with great generosity towards the 
princes whom it had plundered, after the manner of 
those open-handed thieves of fiction who fling back 
a couple of broad pieces to the traveller whom the}- 
have eased of his purse and watch. Bithoor was 



I THE STATION 43 

pleasantly situated uiDon the banks of the sacred 
stream, and was peculiarly suited to be the Saint 
Juste in which a retired Brahmin ruler might be 
content to end his days ; for the spot was held in 
singular favour by Brahma. Here, after the crea- 
tion had been accomplished, the deity had sacrificed 
a hecatomb, in token that his great work was good. 
The pin which fastened the divine sandal was 
l^icked up in after days, and inserted in the steps 
of the principal landing-place, where it may still 
be seen by the incredulous. x4.t the full moon in 
November, prodigious crowds of pilgrims assemble 
from all parts of India to celebrate the present god 
with frankincense, and flowers, and barbarous music, 
and drunken frenzy. With his traditions and his 
greyhounds, his annuity of eighty thousand pounds, 
and his host of retainers, Bajee Rao led a splendid 
and not unhaj)py existence. But the old Mahratta 
had one sore trial. He had no son to inherit his 
possessions, perpetuate his name, and apply the 
torch to his funeral pyre : for the last office, so the 
inflexible law of his religion ordained, might be 
performed by none other than a filial hand. In 
this strait he had recourse to adoption, a ceremony 
which, by Hindoo law, entitles the favoured person 
to all the rights and privileges of an heir born of 
the body. His choice fell upon an individual who, 
according to some, was the son of a Poonah corn- 
merchant, while others say that he was born in 
great poverty at a miserable village in the vicinity 
of Bombay. The name of this man was Seereek 
Dhoondoo Punth : but the execration of mankind 
has found his cluster of titles too loncf for use, 



44 CAWNPORE chap. 

and prefers the more familiar appellation of " the 
Nana." 

Bajee Rao died in 1851, and the heir forthwith 
put in a demand for the continuance of the pension 
which the Company had granted to his adopted 
father. The claim was disallowed, and the Nana, 
who at length began to despair of prevailing upon 
the Calcutta authorities, determined to go to the 
fountain-head, and accordingly despatched an agent 
to London. For this purpose he selected his con- 
fidential man of business, Azimoolah Khan, a clever 
adventurer who began life as kitmutgar, or foot- 
man, in an Anglo-Indian family. In spite of his 
disadvantages, he acquired a thorough acquaintance 
with the English and French languages. He subse- 
quently became a pupil, and thence a teacher, in the 
Government School at Cawnpore ; in which position 
he attracted the notice of the Nana. Azimoolah 
arrived in town during the height of the season of 
1854, and was welcomed with open arms by that 
portion of society which makes no inquiries into the 
antecedents of an aspirant to its favour, provided he 
be not a fellow-countryman or Christian. According 
to the creed of this class, every Hindoo was neces- 
sarily a prince, just as every Maronite is a martyr, 
and every Pole a patriot. Azimoolah speedily 
became a lion, and obtained more than even a 
lion's share of the sweetest of all flattery. The 
ladies voted him charming. Handsome and witty, 
endowed with plenty of assurance and an apparent 
abundance of diamonds and Cashmere shawls, the 
ex-kitmutgar seemed as fine a gentleman as the 
prime minister of Nepaul, or the Maharaja of the 



1 THE STATION 45 

Punjaub. Ou the first day of the great vengeance, 
when Havelock's forlorn hope came to Bithoor, grim 
and eager, straight from the brink of the fatal well, 
our soldiers discovered amongst the possessions of 
this scoundrel letters from more than one titled lady 
couched in terms of the most courteous friendshii^. 
An indiscretion for which a smile would be too severe 
a punishment, at such a moment excited bitter and 
painful emotion. 

Great as were the successes which the agent of the 
Nana gained on his own account in May fair, he was 
able to effect very little for his master in Leadenhall 
Street and Westminster. In the reports which he 
transmitted to Bithoor he attributed his failure to 
the bribes which the Board of Control and the Privy 
Council had eaten at the hands of the East Indian 
Company; an explanation which appeared satisfac- 
tory to the Maharaja. On his way home Azimoolah 
passed through Constantinople at the time when our 
fortune in the Crimea was at the lowest ebb. During 
the mid-ffloom of that terrible winter there was much 
talk among those who did not love us concerning the 
decadence of England and the youthful vigour of the 
Russian power. Of such gossip the clever Asiatic 
collected an ample budget, in order to console his 
baffled employer with cheery vaticinations relating 
to the approaching downfall of the British rule. 

Although the Nana had failed in his attempt on 
the public purse, his wealth was still conspicuous 
even amono- the colossal incomes of Indian land- 
holders. He had contrived to secure to himself the 
whole projjerty of the ex-Peishwa, and strange stories 
were told about the means by which this end had 



46 CAWNPORE chap. 

been accomplished. The nephew of Bajee Rao 
started a claim for one half of his uncle's estate, 
which moiety he valued at more than three millions. 
The suit was dismissed, and the plaintiff never ceased 
to affirm that " the palm of the judge had been 
greased by the Nana : " but too much attention 
must not be paid to this declaration ; for, whenever 
a native accuses the bench of corruption, he simply 
means that he has lost his case. It is certain that 
the Maharaja kept in confinement against their will 
the widows of his predecessor; for whose younger 
daughter he planned a marriage inconsistent with 
the rules and traditions of the family ; an act of out- 
rageous tyranny in the estimation of High Brahmins. 
He wedded the eldest sister to a husband whom she 
was never allowed to see ; and, when her death oc- 
curred after no long interval, it was whispered about 
the neighbourhood that there had been very foul 
play in every sense of the word. Those fictitious 
tales of vice and atrocity, with which literary hacks 
of the vilest class feed the corrupt imaginations of 
their readers, too often find a parallel in the realities 
of a great Oriental household. The doctrine of per- 
sonal ris'lits had no existence within the walls of a 
zenana. Nowhere was the mystery of iniquity deeper 
and darker than in the palace of Bithoor, which was 
indeed a worthy nest for such a vulture. There were 
rooms in that palace horribly unfit for any human 
eye, where both European and native artists had 
done their best to gratify a master who was willing 
to incur any expense for the completion of his loath- 
some picture-gallery. 

In the apartments open to the inspection of 



I THE STATION 47 

English visitors tliere was nothing which could shock 
either modesty or humanity, though a Sahib of fas- 
tidious taste might take exception to the arrange- 
ment of the furniture and the decorations. The habits 
of an Oriental are so simple, his wants so few, that 
a Hindoo gentleman can never acqu.ire himself, 
and still less impart to his servants, a thorough 
acquaintance with our complicated domestic ap- 
pliances. And no Eastern Anglo-maniac possessed 
a more heterogeneous collection than the Nana, who, 
living far from Calcutta, the centre of exotic fashion, 
Avas reduced to content himself with whatever trea- 
sures might come into the market at casual up- 
country sales. A gentleman of some literary reputa- 
tion, who was entertained by the Maharaja in days 
gone by, thus describes the Bithoor menage : — " I 
" sat down to a table twenty feet long (it had origin- 
" ally been the mess- table of a cavalry regiment) 
"which was covered with a damask table-cloth of 
"European manufacture, but instead of a dinner 
"napkin there was a bedroom towel. The souj) — 
" for the steward had everything ready — was served 
" up in a trifle-dish which had formed part of a 
" dessert service belonging to the Ninth Lancers — at 
" all events the arms of that regiment were upon it ; 
" but the plate into which I ladled it with a broken 
" tea-cup was of the old willow pattern. The pilau 
" which followed the soup was served upon a huge 
" plated dish, but the plate from which I ate it was 
" of the very commonest description. The knife was 
" a bone-handled affair ; the spoon and fork were 
"silver, and of Calcutta make. The plated side- 
" dishes, containing vegetables, were odd ones ; one 



48 CAWNPORE CHAP. 

" was round, the other oval. The pudding was 
"brought in upon a soup-plate, of blue and gold 
"pattern, and the cheese was placed before me on 
"a glass dish belonging to a dessert service. The 
" cool claret I drank out of a richly cut champag-ne 
" oflass, and the beer out of an American tumbler of 
" the very worst quality." 

The Maharaja had a large and excellent stable 
of horses, elephants, and camels ; a well-appointed 
kennel ; and a menagerie of pigeons, falcons, pea- 
cocks, and apes, which would have done credit to any 
Oriental monarch, from the days of Solomon down- 
wards. His armoury was stocked with weapons 
of every age and country, from a masterpiece of 
Purdey to the bow and arrows used by the Hillmen 
of Orissa. His reception-rooms sparkled with 
mirrors and chandeliers that had come direct from 
Birmingham; and his equipages had stood within 
the twelvemonth in the warehouses of Long Acre. 
He possessed a vast store of gold and silver plate ; 
and his wardrobe overflowed with shawls and jewel- 
lery, which on gala days were regarded with long- 
ing eyes by the Cawnpore ladies. Nor did they 
lack frequent opportunities of contemplating the 
Maharaja in his panoply of kincob and Cashmere 
scarfs, crowned with a tiara of pearls and diamonds, 
and girt with old Bajee Rao's sword of state, which 
report valued at three lacs of rupees. For the 
Nana seldom missed an occasion for giving a ball 
or a banquet in European style to the society of 
the station ; although he would never accept an 
entertainment in return, because our Government, 
which refused to regard him as a royal personage, 



I THE STATION 49 

would not allow him the compKment of a salute. 
Nor did he treat his guests with the semi-barbarous 
discourtesy evinced by some native hosts, who pass 
the evening seated among a group of courtiers, 
scrutinizing the dancers through a lorgijette, and 
apparently regarding the whole proceeding as a 
ballet arranged for their individual amusement. The 
Maharaja mixed freely with the company ; inquired 
after the health of the Major's lady ; congratulated 
the judge on hij? rumoured promotion to the Sudder 
Court ; joked the assistant magistrate about his last 
mishap in the hunting-field ; and complimented the 
belle of the evening on the colour she had brought 
down from Simla. His wealth was abundant enough 
to allow of any vagaries of hospitality and personal 
extravagance, and does not seem to have been 
seriously impaired even by the expense entailed by 
a crowd of lazy myrmidons whom he kept about 
his person; a folly common to all high-born and 
opulent Hindoos. Every native landlord, who can 
induce his neighbours to dignify him with the title 
of Rajah, delights in flourishing about the country 
under the escort of a host of blackguards — the 
horsemen armed with lances and old cavalry swords, 
and mounted on raw-boned, long-tailed horses, 
smeared with coarse paint — the infantry straggling 
along under the weight of clubs, partizans, brass 
blunderbusses, and long matchlocks, of which the 
stock is studded with glass beads, and the muzzle 
shaped into the semblance of a dragon's mouth. The 
Nana kept several hundreds of these scamps in idle- 
ness and insolence. He provided them with four 
rupees a month, and a suit of clothes once a year ; 

E 



50 CAWNPORE CHAP. 

an allowance which they ekecl out by plundering 
the peasants for twenty miles round, and extorting 
an intermittent blackmail from the tradesmen of 
Cawnpore. 

At the. time of the mutiny the Nana was about 
thirty-six years of age. His complexion was sallow ; 
his features strongly marked, and not unpleasing. 
Like all Mahrattas, both head and face were shaven 
clean. He was fat, with that unhealthy corpulence 
which marks the Eastern voluptuary. The circum- 
stances under which a young Rajah comes to maturit}^ 
leave him very scant chance of obtaining perfection, 
moral or physical. From his earliest years he is 
surrounded by flatterers and j)andars. While still 
a child in the harem, it is the object of every one, 
beefinning- with his own mother, to obtain his ear 
by adulation, and by the freemasonry of corrupt 
discourse. During his boyhood he has no little 
peers on whom to exert his faculties for emulation 
and self-denial, and, when he has arrived at man's 
estate, he may look in vain for any object of 
honourable ambition amidst the dead level of na- 
tional dependence. He never walks, save from his 
divan to his bath; never mounts one of the huge 
cream-coloured steeds, which on high feast-days 
amble behind his palanquin in melancholy cavalcade ; 
never knows the sensation of honest fatigue and 
wholesome hunger. Long before the age at which 
a high-born Englishman makes his choice of Her- 
cules between balls and blue-books, the effete 
sensuality of a Hindoo noble is reduced to seek 
gratification in the illicit charms of Indian hemp 
and French brandy. What wonder that in middle 



I THE STATION 51 

life lie is flabby and gross beyond hope and compass ; 
too feeble for manly exercise, too self-indulgent to 
practise a self-denying regimen ? It is to be pre- 
sumed that a long course of lentil diet and hill- 
climbing in Nepaul has by this time reduced that 
superfluous bulk which may yet grace a Cawnpore 
gallows. 

The Maharaja of Bithoor exhibited a lively in- 
terest in the proceedings of our Government at 
home and abroad, in our history, our arts, our 
religion, and our customs ; although he was entirely 
ignorant of our language. He subscribed to all the 
leading Anglo-Indian journals, which were translated 
to him daily by an individual who had been unlucky 
enough to exchange a situation on the East Indian 
Kailroad for the post of English Professor in the 
household of the Nana. The Rajah played billiards 
admirably, while he was yet slim enough to bend 
over the table without inconvenience. He especially 
delighted in the game, because it afforded him an 
opportunity for mixing on familiar terms with the 
officers of the garrison. Nothing could exceed the 
cordiality which he constantly displayed in his 
intercourse with our countrymen. The persons in 
authority placed an implicit confidence in his friend- 
liness and good faith, and the ensigns emphatically 
pronounced him a capital fellow. He had a nod or 
a kind word for every Sahib in the station ; hunting- 
parties and jewellery for the men, and picnics and 
shawls for the ladies. If a subaltern's wife required 
change of air, the Rajah's carriage was at the service 
of the young couple, and the European apartments 
at Bithoor were put in order to receive them. If a 



52 CAWNPORE CHAP, i 

civilian had overworked himself in court, he had but 
to speak the word, and the Rajah's elephants were 
sent on to the Oude jungles. But none the less 
did he never for an instant forget the grudge which 
he bore our nation. While his face was all smiles, 
in his heart of hearts he was for ever brooding over 
his rejected claim. From his hour of rejDulse to his 
hour of vengeance, his life was one long irony. 
The lads who, with his saj)phires and rubies glisten- 
inof on their finoers, sat laughino^ round his table, 
had one and all been doomed to die by a warrant 
that admitted of no appeal. He had sworn that the 
injustice should be expiated by the blood of women 
who had never heard his grievance named ; of babies 
who had been born years after the question of that 
grievance had passed into oblivion. The great crime 
of Cawnpore blackens the page of history with a far 
deeper stain than any Sicilian Vespers, or Septem- 
ber massacres ; for this atrocious act was prompted, 
not by diseased and mistaken patriotism, nor by the 
madness of superstition, nor yet by incontrollable 
fear that knew not pity. The motives of the deed 
were as mean as the execution was cowardly and 
treacherous. Among the subordinate villains there 
might be some who were possessed by bigotry and 
class-hatred, but the chief of the gang was actuated 
by no higher impulses than ruffled pride and 
disappointed greed. 



CHAPTER II 

THE OUTBREAK 

DURING the spring of 1857 the native society 
of Hindostan presented those remarkable 
phenomena which, in an Asiatic community, are the 
infalKble symptoms of an approaching convulsion. 
The atmosphere was alive with rumours, of the 
nature peculiar to India ; — strange and inconsequent 
fragments of warning or jorediction, which, with 
reverent credulity, are passed from mouth to mouth 
throughout a million homesteads. No one can tell 
whence the dim whisj^er first arose, or what it may 
portend ; it is received as a voice from heaven, and 
sent forward on its course without comment or 
delay; for the Hindoo people, like the Greeks of 
ancient time, hold Rumour to be divine. Some of 
these unwritten oracles undoubtedly grew spon- 
taneously from the talk of men, and were to be 
regarded merely as indications of the agitated and 
uneasy condition of the public mind ; but, beyond 
all question some secret infiuence was at work to 
advertise, so to speak, the mutiny. The rhigleaders 
of that gigantic conspiracy advisedly undertook to 
im'pjess upon the world at large the idea that some- 
thing was coming, the like of which had not been 



54 CAWNPORE ohap. 

known before. Manifold and variously expressed 
as were the prevailing reports, all had one and the 
same tendency. With a thousand tongues, and in 
a thousand forms, they spoke of a great trial that 
awaited the national religions; a trial from which 
they were eventually to emerge unscathed and vic- 
torious. A prophecy had long been current, that 
the hundredth year from the battle of Plassy would 
witness the downfall of the English rule ; and the 
hundredth year had arrived. A mandate had of 
late gone forth from the palace of Delhi, enjoining 
the Mohammedans at all their solemn gatherings to 
recite a song of lamentation, indited by the royal 
musician himself, which described in touching strains 
the humiliation of their race, and the degradation 
of their ancient faith, once triumphant from the 
Northern snows to the Southern strait, but now 
trodden under the foot of the infidel and the alien. 
In January, the peasants of Bengal were repeating to 
each other a sentence apparently devoid of meaning, 
" Sub lal hoga hi," " everything is to become red." 
Some referred this dubious announcement to the 
13robable extension of our empire over the whole 
continent, when the scarlet coats of our soldiers 
would be seen at Hyderabad and Khatmandoo, in 
Cashmere and Travancore ; while others hinted that 
there was something thicker than water, and of a 
deejDer crimson than a British uniform. Side by 
side with like ambiguous sayings were more plain- 
spoken assertions concerning cartridges smeared 
with lard, and flour mixed with the ground bones 
of cow and pig, and other treacherous devices b}' 
which the demon who swayed the sceptre of Hin- 



II THE OUTBKEAK 55 

dostan, tlie impalpable but omnipotent Kumpani, 
aimed at the destruction of sect and caste, and 
the universal establishment of Christianity. And, 
finally, during the early days of March, every hamlet 
in the Gangetic provinces received from its neigh- 
bour the innocent present of two chupatties, or 
bannocks of salt and dough, which form the staple 
food of the population. This far-famed token, the 
fiery cross of India, had no definite signification. It 
notified generally that men would do well to keep 
themselves prepared, for that something was in the 
air. In after days, one who had learned their effect 
by bitter experience, likened the chupatties to the 
cake of barley-bread which foreshadowed the destruc- 
tion of the host of Midian. And so, from hand to hand, 
and from house to house, and from village to village, 
the mysterious symbol flew, and spread through the 
length and breadth of the land confusion and ques- 
tioning, a wild terror, and a wilder hope. Truly, it 
may be said that, as in Judaea of old, there was 
distress of nations, and perplexity; men's hearts 
failing them for fear, and for looking after those 
things that were coming on the earth. 

Meanwhile, at Cawnpore, people ate, and drank, 
and married, and gave in marriage, and led the 
ordinary life of an up-country station. The magis- 
trate giamibled because the judge acquitted too 
large a percentage of his committals; and the col- 
lector pronounced himself ill-used because the re- 
venue board would not allow him an additional lac 
of rupees for his j^et embankment ; and the subalterns 
complained that the 23olice-magistrate did not jDer- 
mit them to impress men to act as beaters at less 



50 UAWNPOUE CHAP. 

than the market rate of wages ; and the captains, by 
the aid of the mess-room army-Hst, made those in- 
tricate calculations which are the delight of military 
men and the despair of civilians; and the ladies 
began to allow that the weather had grown too warm 
for dancing, though still favourable for morning calls ; 
and one talked of sending her children home ; and 
another of going herself to the hills ; and, towards 
the end of April, a party of disbanded Brahmins 
of the Nineteenth regiment came from the west, 
and spread through the sepoy lines strange tales 
of greased cartridges, and gibbets, and midnight 
tumults, and officers cut down in the midst of the 
parade-ground. 

Before the month of May was half over, the 
English residents at Cawnpore were beginning to 
be made uneasy by the disagreeable character of the 
intelligence from Agra. Something had happened 
at Meerut, and it was feared that something had 
happened at Delhi. Guns had been heard all the 
night of the tenth. European travellers from the 
north-west, whose arrival had been confidently ex- 
pected, did not make their appearance. A party 
of the police had gone out to look for them, but 
met nobody except a young sejDoy trotting down the 
road on a cavalry troop-horse, who refused to answer 
any questions. But in the meanwhile, by those 
secret channels through which in Eastern regions bad 
news travels with more than proverbial celerity, it 
was well known in the bazaar that the Third Light 
Cavalry had turned upon their officers ; that nuuxler 
and arson had been the order of the day; that the vast 
native garrison of Delhi had risen to a man, and had 



II THE OUTBREAK 57 

butchered every Eugiishman on whom they could 
lay their hands ; that mutiny had gotten to itself a 
nucleus and a stronghold in the capital of the Mogul. 
These tidings caused great excitement throughout 
the cantonments, and esi^ecially in the lines of the 
Second Cavalry, to whose regiment the corps which 
had set the example of sedition stood next on the 
rolls of the Bengal army. 

The officer in command of the Cawnpore division 
was Major-General Sir Hugh Wheeler, K.C.B. At 
the outbreak of the troubles, many of our most im- 
portant stations were entrusted to the charge of 
men who had won their spurs in the Mahratta wars, 
and might well have been content to have closed 
their career at Mooltan ; and that such was the case 
is to our shame as a military nation. History blushes 
to chide these veterans for shortcomings incidental 
to their age. It is hardly just to blame them for 
displaying supineness and indecision at a crisis when 
younger warriors would have been disarming, and 
blowing from guns, and securing treasure, and throw- 
ing up earthworks, and sending the Avomen and 
children down the river to Calcutta. In his second 
half-century of Indian service, Sir Hugh was among 
the oldest members of the old school of Bengal 
officers. He worshipped his sepoys; spoke their 
lanoniao'e like one of themselves ; and, indeed, had 
testified to his predilection for the natives of Hin- 
dostan by the strongest proof which it is in the 
power of a man to give. Short and spare, he still 
rode and walked like a soldier ; and appears to have 
been capable of as much exertion as could reasonably 
be expected from an Englishman who had spent 



58 CAWNPORE 



CHAP. 



beneath an Indian sun more tlian two-thirds of his 
seventy-five years. On the eighteenth of May, he 
despatched the following message to the seat of 
Government : 

''All well at CawnjDore. Quiet, but excitement 
"continues among the people. The final advance 
" on Delhi will soon be made. The insurgents can 

o 

" only be about 3,000 in number, and are said to 
" cling to the walls of Delhi, where they have put 
"up a puppet-king. I grudge the escape of one 
"of them. Calm and expert policy will soon re- 
" assure the pubHc mind. The j^lague is, in truth, 
" stayed." 

The reader need not be alarmed at the length of 
the telegraphic news from Cawnpore. There is but 
little more to come. For in truth the plague was 
very far from stayed. The soldiery knew their own 
strength, and were well inclined to turn the know- 
ledge to profit. There were schoolmasters who 
might have taught them a lesson of quite another 
description : but it was a far cry to Barrackpore, and 
there was no Hearsey at hand. It hapjDens that a 
native lawyer, Nanukchund by name, took the pre- 
caution to keep a full and faithful journal, from the 
fifteenth of May onwards. This man was bound to 
our interest by the indissoluble tie of a common fear. 
A personal enemy of the Nana, he was actually 
engaged in conducting the suit instituted by the 
nephew of Bajee Rao to establish his claim to the 
half of his uncle's estate. With genuine Hindoo 
sagacity, he foresaw the approaching struggle, and 
the ultimate triumph of the English power; and 
conjectured that a record of events compiled with 



II THE OUTBREAK 59 

accuracy, slightly tinged by a somewhat ostentatious 
loyalty, would certainly procure him credit, and, 
possibly, a comfortable official income. Two days 
before Sir Hugh made his cheerful report to the 
Governor-General, Nanukchund looked in on a friend 
employed at the Treasury, and there heard the 
native officers of the guard uttering traitorous 
language, while their men amused themselves by 
quarrelling with the townsfolk who went to the 
Treasury on business. They detained people who 
came out with money or stamp-papers, and would 
not release them till ordered to do so by the 
Soubahdar. " It began to be evident," says this 
shrewd observer, " that nobody had any authority 
but the Soubahdars and the sepoys." 

At length the symptoms of the growing malady 
became too patent to be disregarded even by the 
most sanguine ^jhysician. It came to the ears of 
the General that the son of a trooper in the Second 
Cavalry had been boasting to his schoolfellows that 
he was in the secret of what his father's regiment 
intended to do for the good cause. And, about the 
same time, one Khan Mohamed, a sepoy of the Fifty- 
sixth, took upon himself to assert that on the fifth of 
the next month the native troops were to be deprived 
of their arms, assembled under the pretence of getting 
their pay, and then and there blown up from a mine 
constructed by the European officers in the intervals 
of billiards. This singularly unpleasant prophet seems 
to have been without honour in his own battalion. 
His comrades brought information to the adjutant, 
who gave himself no trouble about the matter, be- 
yond telling them that the story was all a lie. There- 



60 CAWNPOUE CHAP. 

upon Khaii Moliamecl went to the cavalry lines, 
where he found an audience more ready to accept his 
tale. On this occasion he imported into his story 
some squadrons of English troopers, Avho were to be 
equipped with the swords and horses of his hearers. 
The regiment was soon in a panic of rage and fear. 
It became necessary to take immediate measures. 
The incendiary was put in irons, and an urgent 
application for aid telegraphed to Lucknow. Sir 
Henry Lawrence was roused from his bed at midnight, 
and by break of day all the available post-carriages 
in the station were rolling along towards Cawnpore, 
crammed inside and out with English soldiers. 

But, in an hour of evil omen, Sir Huoh bethought 
himself of invoking the assistance of a more dubious 
ally. The Nana had lately paid a visit to the 
capital of Oude, under pretence of seeing the lions 
of the place. The arrogance of his manner, and 
the discourtesy of his sudden and unannounced 
departure, had attracted the attention of Mr. Gub- 
bins, the Financial Commissioner, v/ho communicated 
to General Wheeler his suspicions, backed by the 
opinion of Sir Henry Lawrence. It may be that 
the fatal step was first suggested by the warning of 
wiser men. It may be that the idea had long been 
familiar to the mind of the infatuated veteran. At 
all events, the sole answer to the remonstrance from 
Lucknow was a message, dated the twenty-second of 
May, stating that "two guns, and three hundred men, 
"cavalry and infantry, furnished by the Maharaja of 
" Bithoor, came in this morning." 

On their march to Cawnpore, these scoundrels 
famished a striking proof of their discipline and 



Ti THE OUTBREAK Gl 

good faith. Cliimna Apa, a man of some property, 
who supplied the nephew of Bajee Rao with the 
means of carryino' on his lawsuit, was drivino' out of 
town in the direction of Bithoor, wlien he unex- 
pectedly came upon this f(^rmidable array, com- 
manded by the rival litigant. Apa, like a sensible 
fellow, jumped off his conveyance, and ran into 
a neighbouring ravine. The Nana's people appro- 
jDriated a valuable sword and five hundred rupees, 
which the fugitive had left behind in his haste, 
cudgelled the servants, and went off declaring that 
the master had better look to himself, as the British 
iiile would only last a few days longer. This speci- 
men of the services which these new protectors 
were likely to render to the cause of law and order 
was brought to the notice of the authorities ; but 
they had gone too far to draw back. The Nana 
took up his quarters in the midst of the houses 
occupied by the civilians and their families ; the 
Treasury, which contained upwards of a hundred 
thousand pounds, was put under the custody of 
his body-guard ; and it was even proposed that the 
ladies and children should be placed in sanctuary 
in Bithoor Palace. 

There were some, however, who scrupled to 
entrust the honour of England and the lives of 
her daughters to the exclusive guardianshijj of a 
discontented Mahratta. At their instigation the 
General set to work in a dilatory spirit to provide 
an asylum where, if the worst should befall, we 
might shelter, for a while at least, the relics of 
our name and power. He does not appear to have 
thought of the magazine, which was admirably 



62 CAWNPORE chap. 

adapted for defence. A mud wall, four feet high, 
was thrown up round the buildings which composed 
the old Dragoon hospital, and ten guns of various 
calibre were placed in position round the intrench- 
ment, by which name the miserable contrivance 
was dignified. Orders were given to lay in supplies 
for twenty-five days. The stock of rice, butter, salt, 
tea, sugar, rum, beer, and preserved meats looked 
well enough on paper. But the master's eye, which 
in India is even more essential than elsewhere, was 
entirely wanting. The contractors behaved after 
their kind. Peas and flour formed the bulk of the 
supplies, and even these were ridiculously insuffi- 
cient. The regimental officers, who had no very 
lively confidence in Sir Hugh as a caterer, sent in 
large contributions of liquor and hermetically-sealed 
tins from their mess-stores. The tangible results 
of a fortnight's labour and supervision, at a time 
when every hour was precious, and every day 
priceless, consisted in a few cart-loads of coarse 
native food, and a fence not high enough to keep 
out an active cow. Utterly inefficient as they were, 
the sight of these preparations had a most unfor- 
tunate influence upon the minds of the sepoys. 
The timid were seriously alarmed by the hostile 
attitude adopted by our countrymen. The bolder 
spirits rejoiced to witness so plain a confession of 
apprehension on the part of their officers, while 
the more honest and trustworthy among their 
number would say to each other : " The Sahibs 
" have lost all confidence in us, and we shall never 
" get over it." Where there is a will, there is a 
way, even in such a strait. And where there is 



II THE OUTBEEAK 63 

half a will, there is a way likewise; but it leads 
whither it is not good that brave men should 
go — to disaster and discomfiture, to bootless sac- 
rifice and inglorious ruin. During these days 
Azimoolah, while walking with a lieutenant who 
had been a great favourite at Bithoor, pointed to 
the fortification which was then in progress, and 
said — . 

" What do you call that place you are making out 
''' in the plain ? " 

" I am sure I don't know," was the reply. 

Azimoolah suggested that it should be called 
"The Fort of Desj)air." "No, no," answered the 
Englishman, "we will call it the Fort of Victory:" 
an observation that was received by his companion 
with an air of incredulous assent, which he must 
have acquired in West-end drawing-rooms. 

And now ensued a period of ceaseless dread, of 
suspicion that never slumbered, of suspense hardly 
preferable to the most terrible certainty. The 
women and children spent the nights within the 
circuit of the intrenchment, while their husbands, 
with devotion that merited a better reward, pitched 
their tents among the sepoy huts, and so took what 
sleep they might. On the twentieth of May, flames 
broke out after dark in the lines of the First Native 
Infantry. In a moment the station was on the 
alert. Men hurried on their clothes, and clutched 
revolvers from under their pillows. Guns loaded 
with grape were trundled down to a preconcerted 
rendezvous. It was no easy matter to persuade 
people that so ill-timed a conflagration could be 
altogether accidental. The twenty-fourth of the 



64 CAWNPORE 



CHAP 



month was the festival of the Eed ; a season which 
Mohammedans celebrate with the blood of sheep 
and goats, though on this occasion there was serious 
cause to ajDprehend lest, in their religious enthu- 
siasm, they should pant for nobler victims. Sir 
Hugh telegraphed to Lucknow his belief that noth- 
ing could avert a rising. The feast, however, passed 
off without any disturbance. The Mussulmans in 
our ranks paid their respects to their officers; ac- 
knowledged with apparent gratitude the customary 
present of a fat Patna sheep ; and protested that, 
come what might, they would be faithful to their 
leaders : — a statement that was accepted for as 
much as it was worth. But these alternations of 
confidence and alarm gradually settled down into 
chronic gloom. On the return of the Queen's birth- 
day the usual comiDliment was omitted, lest the 
natives should interpret the firing of the salute as 
a signal for revolt. Even military loyalty dared not 
do honour to our sovereign in a garrison that was 
still nominally her own. A sergeant's wife was 
making some purchases in the bazaar, when a man, 
whose martial gait and spruce appearance clearly 
proclaimed the sepoy in undress, accosted the poor 
woman in these words ; — " Ah ! you will none of you 
"come here much oftener ; you will not be alive 
"another week." Our countrymen began to keep 
watch all night by turns, armed to the teeth. As 
on a burning ship, when the sea runs high, and the 
last boat has been swamped or dashed to pieces, 
the crew wait with clenched teeth till the fire has 
reached the magazine, and say, " Now it is coming ; " 
or again, " Now ; " so the EngHshmen at Cawnpore, 



II THE OUTBREAK 65 

ignorant what each day might bring forth, certain 
only that the catastrophe was not remote, sat, pistol 
in hand, and expected the inevitable. Some families 
endeavoured to get down to Allahabad ere it was yet 
too late. But the roads swarmed with rebellious 
peasantry, and liberated jail-birds : the shallows in 
the river forbade all passage in this the eighth- 
month of the annual drought ; and escape was found 
to be impracticable. Whatever destiny might have 
in store was to be shared by all alike. 

During the closing days of May, people were 
writing hard to catch the Home Mail : and they 
did well, for it was the last. Strange, beyond con- 
ception of poet, strange and sad, must have been 
the contents of that Cawnpore mail-bag. Imagine 
Colonel Ewart, of the First Native Infantry, seated 
at his desk in a tent surrounded by line behind line 
of huts and camp-fires, in and about which are 
swaggering hundreds of insolent, faithless mercen- 
aries. Picture that scene, and then read : " I do not 
''wish to write gloomily, but there is no use in dis- 
" guising the fact, that we are in the utmost danger; 
" and, as I have said, if the troops do mutiny, my life 
" must almost certainly be sacrificed ; but I do not 
"think they Avill venture to attack the intrenched 
" position which is held by the European troops, so I 
" hope in God that my wife and child will be saved. 

"And now, dear A , farewell. If, under God's 

" providence, this be the last time I am to write to 
" you, I entreat you to forgive all I have ever done 
" to trouble you, and to think kindly of me. I know 
"you will be everything a mother can be to my 
"boy. I cannot write to him this time, dear little 



66 CAWNPORE chap. 

"fellow. Kiss liim for me. Kind love to my 
" brothers." 

So spoke the stout soldier, fearing not for himself, 
but for a wife who was worthy of the husband, as 
her own words show. " My dear child," she says, 
"is looking very delicate. My prayer is that she 
" may be spared much suffering. The bitterness of 
"death has been tasted by us many times during 
'' the last fortnight, and, should the reality come, 
"I hope we may find strength to meet it with a 
"truly Christian courage. It is not hard to die 
"oneself, but to see a dear child suffer and perish, 
"that is the hard, the bitter trial, and the cup 
"which I must drink, should God not deem it fit 
"that it should pass from me. My companion, 
"Mrs. Hillersdon, is delightful. Poor young thing, 
"she has such a gentle spirit, so unmurmuring, so 
"desirous to meet the trial rightly, unselfish and 
"sweet in every way. She has two children, and 
" we feel that our duty to our little ones demands 
" that we should exert ourselves to keep up health 
"and spirits as much as possible." That is the 
temper with which the mothers of Englishmen 
should die, if die they must. 

" Such nights of anxiety," she continues, " I would 
" never have believed possible, and the days are full 
" of excitement. Another fortnight, we expect, will 
" decide our fate ; and, whatever it may be, I trust 
"we shall be able to bear it. If these are my last 
"words to you, you will remember them lovingly, 
"and always bear in mind that your affection and 
"the love we have ever had for each other is an 
" ingredient of comfort in these bitter times." Such 



n THE OUTBREAK 67 

was the tone of the letters which, thence and at 
that season, went forth to spread a terrible solici- 
tude through many an English household. Very 
different from the tender confidences and innocent 
gossip, the reminiscences of sick-leave and the anti- 
cipations of furlough, the directions to milliners and 
the inquiries about boarding-schools, which are the 
ordinary materials of the Home Correspondence 
from an Indian station. 

Meanwhile, the Nana was in intimate communi- 
cation with the ringleaders of the Second Cavalry. 
The black sheep of the regiment were wont to 
hold meetings at the quarters of a trooper named 
Shumshoodeen Khan, and of Teeka Sing, a Hindoo 
Soubahdar, who, by his audacity and energy, had 
gained an ascendency among his colleagues. These 
gatherings were attended by Jwala Pershad, a 
hanger-on at Bithoor Palace, and Muddud Ali, who 
had lately resigned the service of the Maharaja and 
taken to horse-dealing, but who still used to visit 
his former master in the way of business. At 
length, Teeka Sing had the honour of an interview 
with the Nana himself, during which, according to 
the story current among his comrades, the Sou- 
bahdar spoke to this effect : " You have come to 
"take charge of the magazine and treasury of the 
'' English ; we all, Hindoos and Mohammedans, have 
"united for our religions, and the whole Bengal 
"army has become one in purpose. What do you 
" say to it ? " The Nana replied, " I, also, am at the 
"disposal of the army." This very essential ques- 
tion having been so frankly answered, arrangements 
were made for a final consultation. One June even- 



68 CAWNPORE chap. 

ing, after dusk, the Maharaja, accompanied by his 
brother Bala and the ubiquitous Azimoolah, repaired 
to a landing-place on the Ganges, whither his emis- 
saries had conducted Teeka Sing and his associates. 
The whole party seated themselves in a boat, and 
talked earnestly for a space of two hours. They 
appear to have arrived at a satisfactory conclusion ; 
for, next day, Shumshoodeen wetted his prospective 
honours at the house of Azeezun, a favourite cour- 
tesan of the Second Cavalry troopers. In his tipsy 
fondness he told the girl that in a day or two the 
Nana would be paramount, and promised to stuff 
her house with gold mohurs from roof to cellar. 

The Maharaja endeavoured to conceal his move- 
ments by shifting his residence to and fro between 
Bithoor and the cantonments; but he was closely 
watched by the spies of those among his own coun- 
trymen who had reason to dread his elevation. If 
British authority were to perish, if the sepoys and 
their new ally were in power but for a single week, 
it would go ill indeed with all who had ever crossed 
the Nana in love, law, or speculation. And, especi- 
ally, any who had concern in the great lawsuit would 
do well to look to themselves, litigant, paymaster, 
witness, and counsel alike. As early as the twenty- 
sixth of May, the sharp-sighted advocate, whose 
diary has been already quoted, drew up an account 
of the embryo conspiracy, and sent it in the form of 
a petition to the magistrate of the station ; " Who," 
says Nanukchund, " gave no heed to my j)etition, and 
"got so vexed with me that I cannot describe his 
" anger. He said to me, ' You have all along been 
" ' speaking ill of the Nana, and filing suits against 



11 THE OUTBREAK 69 

" ' him in the civil courts. I cannot pay attention to 
" ' any representation from a person so hostile to the 
" ' Nana.' I replied that those affairs had no con- 
"nection with the present question, that the Nana 
" had long harboured enmity to the Government, and 
" a gi-eat number of rascals belonged to his party ; 
"that he (the magistrate) would remember my 
"caution, and that I had obtained certain intelli- 
"gence, as the men of the Nana's household com- 
"municated it to Chimna Apa, my cHent. The 
'^magistrate would Hsten to nothing. In despair, 
" I did nothing further than keep a copy of the 
"petition in my book. It is a hopeless case. Let 
" us see what will be the end of all this neglect." A 
dramatist of ancient Greece would have attributed 
such obstinate blindness to the malice of some 
injured deity, deluding those whom he had marked 
for destruction. 

The last mail had already left Cawnpore. At 
nine o'clock on the night of the third of June, went 
forth the last telegraphic message that ever reached 
the outer world. Thus it ran : — 

" Sir Hugh Wheeler to the Secretary to the Government 
of India, 

"All the orders and proclamations have been 
" sent express, as the telegraph communication be- 
"tween this and Agra is obstructed. 

"Sir Henry Lawrence having expressed some 
"uneasiness, I have just sent him by post car- 
"riages out of my small force two officers and 
"fifty men of Her Majesty's 84th Foot; convey- 



70 CAWNPOKE chap. 

"ance for more not available. This leaves me 
''weak, but I trust to liolding my own until more 
" Europeans arrive." 

So^it was. Prompted by a genuine sentiment of 
chivalry, Sir Hugh not only sent back the Lucknow 
reinforcement that had arrived during the previous 
week, but increased it by a detachment from his 
own scanty command. He doubtless considered 
that, at such a time, a loan of English bayonets 
should bear high interest. And it was well for 
these men that they were removed from the doomed 
garrison to a field where they might fight not with- 
out some prospect of life, some hope of victory. 
Those who were marked to remain and die were 
enough to do their country loss. 

As in a frame predisposed to disease the slightest 
irregularity is productive of fatal results, so now at 
Cawnpore the smouldering fires of discontent and 
distrust were inflamed by an incident which at 
ordinary times would have passed almost without 
remark. There was resident at the station a 
cashiered subaltern Avhom it would be cruel to 
name ; one of those miserable men who had sought 
relief from the mental vacuity and physical prostra- 
tion of an Indian military life in the deadly solace 
of excess. This officer, whether in the wantonness 
of drink, or the horror of shattered nerves, fired a 
shot at a cavalry patrol who challenged him as he 
reeled out of his bungalow into the darkness. He 
missed his aim, as was natural under the circum- 
stances ; but the trooper lodged a complaint in the 
morning, and a court-martial was assembled which 



II THE OUTBREAK 71 

acquitted the Englishman, on the ground that he 
was intoxicated at the time, and that his musket 
had gone off under a mistake. The sepoys, familiar 
as they were with the brutality of low Europeans 
and the vagaries of military justice, would at a less 
critical season have expressed small surprise either 
at the outrage or the decision. But now their blood 
was up, and their pride awake, and they were not 
inclined to overrate the privileges of an Anglo-Saxon, 
or the sagacity of a military tribunal. The men of 
the Second Cavalry muttered angrily that possibly 
their own muskets might go off by mistake before 
very long, and this significant expression became 
proverbial throughout the whole native force. Ad- 
ditional point was given to the grim humour of the 
soldiery by the unwonted sight of the corpses of an 
English lady and gentleman, which, floating down 
the river from some distant scene of death, had 
turned aside into the canal that traversed the city 
of Cawnpore. Ganges was yet to bear many such 
burdens. Though wires had been cut, and mails 
burnt, and every road blockaded, these silent but 
unimpeachable messengers, in virtue of the safe- 
conduct granted to them alone, were long destined to 
carry from station to station the tidings of woe and 
dismay. 

The end was not remote. That despair deferred, 
which had long made sick the hearts of our country- 
men ; that great fear which was their companion day 
and night, had now reached their consummation. On 
Thursday, the fourth of June : while far away on the 
banks of pleasant Thames, Eton was celebrating the 
birthday of her patron monarch, with recitations from 



i2 CAWNPORE cHAi^. 

Julius Caesar, and copious libations of* unwonted 
champagne : at Cawnpore the men of the Second 
Cavalry were sharpening sabres, and distributing 
ammunition, and secreting their families and their 
property in the back-slums of the native city. In 
the mid-darkness of the succeeding night, when men 
were in their first sleep, three reports of a pistol, and 
a sudden and brilliant conflagration, showed that the 
hour had arrived. Teeka Sing, who was on picket 
duty with his troop, set the example of sedition, 
which was speedily followed by the entire corps. 
Some ran to set alight the house of the English 
riding-master ; some to make a bonfire of the horse- 
litter; others to secure the treasure-chest and the 
colours. These last were stoutly ojDposed by the old 
Soubahdar-major, or native colonel, who was cut 
down at his post after a gallant resistance. Then 
the regiment, mounted and accoutred, drew up on 
the high-road. A bugle sounded, and two horsemen 
left the ranks, and went towards the lines of the 
First Native Infantry, and there cried in a loud 
voice through the gloom : " Our Soubahdar-major 
"sends his compliments to the Soubahdar-major of 
"the First, and wishes to know the reason of this 
" delay, as the cavalry are drawn up on the road." 
Hereupon the sepoys, ignorant that the man in 
whose name they were invoked was at that moment 
lying senseless and bleeding in the quarter-guard 
as a punishment for his loyalty — ignorant of this, 
and perhaps not much caring — began to load their 
muskets, and hurry on their cross-belts, and pack up 
their valuables. Colonel Ewart was at once on the 
spot, and in vain endeavoured to recall his soldiers to 



n THE OUTBREAK 73 

their allegiance, saying to them in the Hindostanee 
tongue : " My children ! my children ! this is not 
your usual conduct. Do not so great a wickedness ! " 
But it was too late for argument or entreaty. 
The battalion turned out in a body, fraternized 
with the mutinous troopers, and marched off in 
their company towards Nawabgunge, the North-west 
suburb of Cawnpore, where lay the treasury and the 
magazine. 

Meanwhile the alarm spread through the station. 
The Adjutants of the Fifty-third and Fifty-sixth 
regiments got their sepoys together on the parade- 
ground, and kept them under arms till the sun was 
well above the horizon. Then the Colonel of the 
Fifty-sixth marched his battalion down to the 
deserted lines of the Second Cavalry, collected and 
secured the horses and arms which had been left 
behind by the mutineers, and finally permitted his 
men to doff their uniforms and cook their breakfasts. 
The Major of the Fifty-third likewise dismissed 
his regiment, and at the same time summoned 
into the intrenchment all his native officers, com- 
missioned and non-commissioned. At such a crisis it 
was singularly injudicious to leave the men to them- 
selves, especially as in this corps the Soubahdars and 
Jemmadars were for the most part free from the taint 
of disaffection, and might have done much towards 
keeping the rank and file to their allegiance. During 
their absence a trooper of the Second Cavalry rode 
in among the huts with a message from the company 
of the Fifty-third which was posted at the Govern- 
ment Treasury, to the effect that the guard would 
allow no division of the spoil until their own regiment 



74 CAWNPORE chap. 

was on the spot to claim its share. Ere long four or 
five grenadiers of the Fifty-sixth were observed to 
steal across the neighbouring lines, and soon after 
they were seen talking eagerly and in a low voice 
with a sergeant and private of the light company. 
Presently these two men shouted out : " Glory be to 
" the great God ! Gentlemen, prepare for action ! " 
and a rash was made on the quarter-guard. The 
sergeant broke open the treasure-chest, and the 
private seized the colours. The native captain who 
was in charge of the precious deposit stood his 
ground like a man ; but he was fired at, hustled, 
and overpowered by numbers. In an instant all was 
uproar, confusion, and terror. The sergeant of the 
fourth company burst into tears, and ran to fetch the 
Adjutant ; the soldiers of the fifth and light com- 
panies flung on their coats, loaded their muskets, 
and crammed their girdles with the regimental 
rupees; while the remainder of the corps came of 
their own accord on to the parade-ground with the 
intention of placing themselves under the command 
of their officers. Unfortunately at this moment Sir 
Hugh Wheeler, prompt with an ill-timed energy, 
and wary with a misplaced distrust, ordered the guns 
of the intrenchment to open fire upon the wavering- 
multitude. At first the sepoys of the Fifty-third 
seemed unwilling to believe that their commander 
had adopted this cruel and uncourteous method of 
intimating to them that he dispensed with their ser- 
vices : but the third round proved too strong a test 
for their loyalty. They broke and fled along the 
main road: the* greater part never stopping until 
they had joined the mutineers at Nawabgunge ; 



II THE OUTBREAK 75 

though a considerable number preferred to conceal 
themselves in an adjacent ravine until such time as 
it should please Sir Hugh to allow them to come 
within gunshot of their own officers. 

So went the Fifty-third. The story of the revolt 
of the Fifty-ninth is told with characteristic Hindoo 
simplicity by Khoda Bux, a commissioned officer 
of that regiment. He says, " I was sleeping in my 
"house between twelve and one A.M., when Hossain 
"Bux, Havildar, Grenadier Company, came and 
" awoke me, and said, ' What ! Are you not awake ? 
"'There is a row in the cavalry lines, three reports 
'' ' of a pistol, and the quartermaster-sergeant's bun- 
"'galow is on fire.' I was astonished, and ordered 
"the regiment to turn out, and went to give in- 
" formation to the Adjutant. He came out of his 
"tent, and went with me to parade, and asked if 
" the regiment was ready. I said, ' Yes, it is ready.' 
" He said, ' Where is it ? ' I said, ' In front of the 
" ' bells of arms.' He ordered them to form up in 
''front of the quarter-guard. I formed them up, 
"and made them ready. I received orders that, 
"if any cavalry man came, he was instantly to 
" be shot. In this way we passed the night with 
"our officers. No one took off his uniform. The 
" cavalry having mutinied went away to Delhi. In 
"the morning the Adjutant ordered us to take off 
"our uniforms, and eat our dinners. Then the 
" guards were placed, and we took off our uniforms. 
" The Colonel came to us, and asked what Naick 
" was on duty at the elephant sheds, as the Cavalry 
" and First Native Infantry wanted four elephants, 
" which were under a guard of a Naick and four 



76 CAWNPORE chap. 

' sepoys of the regiment, and he was greatly pleased 
* they had refused to give them up, and that he was 
'so content with the Naick that he should make 
' him an Havildar. I said it was Gunga Deen, Naick, 
'First Company. The First Regiment mutinied 
'like the cavalry, and went away. After this the 
' Colonel said, ' Bhowany Singh, Soubahdar, has been 
' ' wounded by these mutineers. I will go and see 
' ' him.' I and Annundeedeen, Havildar-major, went 
' with the Colonel to the Cavalry hospital, and 
'saw Bhowany Singh, who was wounded. The 
'Colonel was very much pleased with him. The 
'Colonel then went to his bungalow, and I and 
'Annundeedeen went to our lines, and, having 
' taken off our uniforms, began to smoke ; when 
"' Chain Singh, Havildar, came and said, ' Jemmadar, 
' ' the regiment is turning out.' I asked by whose 
'orders, and why. He said, 'I don't know.' I 
'went outside, and saw that the Havildar was 
' dreadfully frightened, and was buttoning his coat. 
'I went with him to my company, and saw some 
' of the men in the tent packing up their clothes, 
'and others throwing them away. I asked them 
' what was the matter, and why they were getting 
' ready. They said, ' The Fifty-third regiment is 
' ' getting ready, and so are we.' I said, ' Your 
' ' regiment is the Fifty-sixth ; what have you to 
' ' do with the Fifty-third ? It would be better for 
' ' you first to shoot me, and then to do what you 
' ' like afterwards.' Many of the men said, ' You 
' ' are our senior officer ; we will not kill you. Come 
"with us.' I said, 'Very well; I will get ready, 
"and come with you.' I went out of the tent 



II THE OUTBREAK 77 

"very slowly for about a hundred yards, and then 
" ran as fast as I could to the intrenchment, and 
"told the Colonel and Adjutant that the regiment 
"had mutinied. They said, 'Come with us, and 
" ' we will see.' I said, ' Oh, gentlemen, all the 
" ' regiment has mutinied, and are your enemies. It 
" ' is not right for you to go to them.' " 

While Khoda Bux was in search of his Colonel it 
happened that one of the round shots, fired with a 
view of frightening away the sepoys of the Fifty- 
third, rolled among the camp-kitchens of the Fifty- 
sixth. Hereupon Gunga Rai, a grenadier of an ex- 
citable and suspicious temperament, called out that 
they were all going to be killed, and took to his 
heels in the direction of Nawabgunge, followed by 
the whole mob of his comrades. 

And now the ship had struck the reef towards 
which she had long been drifting, and had gone to 
pieces in the twinkling of an eye. It only remained 
for the crew to provision the boats and knock together 
some sort of a raft, as in that hour of sudden and 
bewildering peril best they might. Our officers 
at once proceeded to gather up the relics of the 
native force. Some went the round of the huts, 
while others, by the aid of a bugler, ferreted out 
the men who had sought a hiding-place in the ravine. 
There were found in all some eighty soldiers whose 
sense of duty had been stronger than their fear of 
the English nine-pounders. During the rest of the 
day, these sepoys were employed in carting and 
conveying within the intrenchment the muskets, 
ammunition, and accoutrements which were lying 
about in the lines. Meanwhile many of our country- 



78 CAWNPOKE chap. 

men commenced preparations for instant flight. All 
that day a stream of luggage and furniture was 
passing to and fro between the European quarter 
and the principal landing-places. In that season 
of uncertainty and danger, natives who followed the 
calling of porters and carriers could not be procured 
in the bazaar, so the work had to be done by the 
domestic servants. A sense of comparative relief 
now began to prevail throughout the community. 
Our officers felt that the time had arrived when they 
might consult without dishonour the security of 
themselves and their families. Their occupation 
was gone ; and it seemed very well that their lives 
had not gone likewise. The blow had fallen ; and 
they survived. They knew the worst; and that 
worst was better than the best which they had fore- 
seen. Their military pride had been hurt by the 
sight of their battalion running from them like a 
parcel of street-boys at the appearance of a police- 
man; but in the cowardice of the sepoys lay the 
salvation of the officers. Besides, not only was it 
extremely improbable that the mutineers would ever 
venture again within range of Sir Hugh's artillery, 
but there existed a powerful attraction to draw them 
in quite another direction. Delhi was the centre 
towards which gravitated all the wandering atoms of 
sedition. There the green flag of the Prophet had 
been unfurled, and the ancient imperial faith was 
again dominant. There, on his ancestral throne, sat 
the descendant of Shah Jehan, roi faineant no longer, 
but endowed with a lurid splendour of princely 
independence. There, with arms dyed to the 
elbows in European blood, mustered the heroes of 



II THE OUTBREAK 79 

the great outbreak — the men who had hated with 
the deepest hate, and dared with the most headlong 
and effectual daring. Thither, to swell the ranks of 
that Praetorian guard, swarmed from every corner of 
Northern India all who had reason to covet the ruin 
of England, or to dread her triumph. And thither, 
as our countrjnnen were well aware, the Cawnpore 
mutineers designed to go without delay. Under a 
firm impression that all instant risk was at an end, 
a considerable number of officers passed the night 
of the fifth July in their private residences without 
the circuit of the intrenchment. Confidence had 
succeeded to distrust, cheerful activity to sombre 
and passive expectation. The faces of the sepoys 
were turned towards far Delhi. On the way to 
Allahabad, by road or by river, there was nothing 
which could stop armed and determined men. Their 
professional feelings wounded, but their throats un- 
cut and their honour untarnished, there was good 
hope that within a month they might be smoking 
their cheroots in the verandah of the United Service 
Club in safe and luxurious Calcutta. 

But it was not so to be. The rebellion had already 
gotten to itself a chief, and the chief had matured 
for himself a policy. When the mutineers had 
arrived at Nawabgunge they were given to under- 
stand that the Nana was in the neighbourhood. 
Accordingly he was waited on by a deputation of 
native officers and troopers who addressed him in 
these words : " Maharaja, a kingdom awaits you if 
" you join our enterprise, but death if you side with 
" our enemies." The ready reply was, " What have 
" I to do with the British ? I am altogether yours." 



80 CAWNPORE chap. 

The envoys then requested him to lead the troops to 
Delhi. He assented to their desire ; and ended by 
placing his hand on the head of each of the party, 
and swearing fidelity to the national cause. Then the 
rebels returned to their comrades, and the business of 
spoliation began. The mutineers first marched in a 
body to the Treasury : the keeper of the keys was 
terrified into surrendering his charge : the doors were 
unlocked, and silver to the value of near a hundred 
thousand pounds sterling was distributed among the 
ranks of the four regiments. Then the concourse 
dispersed in search of plunder and mischief. Some 
broke open the jail, and turned loose upon society 
the concentrated rascality of one of the most rascally 
districts in our Eastern dominions. Others set fire 
to the magistrate's office and the court-house ; and, 
in a fit of irrational malice, made a bonfire of all the 
records, civil and criminal alike. Others again, after 
parading about with a flag hoisted upon the back 
of an elephant, vented their spite by cutting the 
cables of the bridge of boats, great part of which 
floated down the river. All European houses at the 
west end of the station were burned and sacked. An 
unhappy overseer of highways was fired upon, not 
without effect, and hunted along the road, the con- 
struction of which he had been engaged in superin- 
tending. When they had done as much damage as 
could be got into a single morning the mutineers 
packed their more valuable booty about their per- 
sons; filled a long caravan of carts with their 
property, their domestic gods, and their female re- 
lations of every degree ; set forth on their adven- 
turous journey; and, after a very easy afternoon's 



H THE OUTBREAK 81 

march, halted at KuUianpore, the hrst stage on 
the Delhi road. 

But as soon as the deputation from the rebel army 
had left the presence of the Nana, his most trusted 
advisers unanimously adjured him to give up the 
idea of accompanying the march on Delhi ; and espe- 
cially his dme damnee, Azimoolah, urged that if he 
allowed himself to be absorbed into the court of the 
Mogul he would lose all power and influence : that it 
would be far more politic to bring into subjection the 
country round Cawnpore, and so command all the 
avenues by which the English reinforcements could 
penetrate into the heart of the disaffected regions : 
that when once possessed of the keys of Delhi and 
the Punjaub he might bargain with the rebels for 
the captain-generalship of their armies, and the uni- 
versal sovereignty of the north of India ; and then, 
with twenty myriads of bayonets and sabres at his 
back, he might sweep down the valley of the Ganges, 
and wreak, once and for ever, his vengeance on the 
detested race ; fight, on this its hundredth anniver- 
sary, a Plassy very different from the last ; renew the 
Black Hole of Calcutta under happier auspices, and 
on a far more generous scale; and so teach those 
Christian dogs what it was to flout a Mahratta and 
cheat a Brahmin of royal blood. This eloquence fired 
the Maharaja, who accordingly ordered his elephants 
and pushed on for KuUianpore, attended by his 
brothers Bala and Baba Bhut, and the indispensable 
Azimoolah. The ringleaders of the mutiny expressed 
their pleasure in being blessed once more with the 
light of his countenance, but displayed very little 
inclination to give up the idea of Delhi. On the 



82 CAWNPOIilS CHAP. 

contrary, they suggested that the Nana should stay 
behind at Cawnpore, and garrison the magazine with 
his own retainers, while they themselves prosecuted 
their expedition towards the north-west. To this 
Bala, a man of execrable temper, which, however, he 
appears to have been able to curb on occasion, replied 
that Sir Hugh Wheeler and his Europeans would 
make themselves very unpleasant to the defenders 
of the magazine, and i3roposed that the mutineers 
should first return and clear out the intrenchment 
and then go off to Delhi. At this point the Maha- 
raja threw in a prospect of unlimited pillage, and an 
offer of a gold anklet to each sepoy, which produced 
an instant and favourable effect upon his audience. 
The mutineers agreed to retrace their steps, and not 
leave the station until they had put all the English 
to the sword. As a pledge of their earnest intention 
to carry out his desires they unanimously saluted 
the Nana as their Eajah, and proceeded forthwith 
to choose leaders who should command them in the 
field. Soubahdar Teeka Sing, the prime mover of 
the revolt, was appointed chief of the cavalry, with 
the title of General. Jemmadar Dulgunjun Sing 
became Colonel of the Fifty-third, and Soubahdar 
Gunga Deen Colonel of the Fifty-sixth. There is a 
certain significance in these names : for they indicate 
that, in the opinion, at any rate, of the mutineers 
themselves, the boldest and most active among the 
authors of the mutiny were not Mussulmans but 
Hindoos ; and the belief that such was in fact the 
case is now very generally entertained by our most 
thoughtful and observant public servants. 

At dawn on the morning of the sixth of June, Sir 



Ji THE OUTBREAK 83 

Hugh Wheeler received a letter, in which the Nana 
announced his intention of at once commencing the 
attack. Our officers were summoned within the in- 
trenchment, where, for a fortnight past, the women 
and children had already been in sanctuary. The 
order was obeyed with soldier-like promptitude, in- 
tensified by the consciousness of imminent peril. It 
fared ill with those who had indulged in a fond 
anticipation that their next change of lodging would 
be to Allahabad and Calcutta. There was no time 
for packing, or even for selection. There was not 
leisure to snatch a parting cu}) of coffee, or a hand- 
ful of cigars, or an armful of favourite books, or a 
pith helmet that had been tested by many a long 
day's tiger-shooting under the blazing Indian sun. 
All possessions, however hardly earned and highly 
prized ; all dear memorials of home and love, were 
to be alike abandoned to the coming foe. Few and 
happy were they who had secured a single change 
of raiment; and they who, in the hurry of the 
moment, had stayed to dress themselves from head 
to foot were by comparison not unfortunate. Half- 
clad, unbreakfasted, confused and breathless, our 
countrymen huddled like shipwrecked seafarers 
into the precincts of the fatal earthwork, which 
they entered only to suffer, and left only to 
die. 

For that fortification had been erected under evil 
auspices. As of Hiel the Bethelite, so it may be 
said of poor Sir Hugh, that he marked out the 
ground in his first-born, and set up the 4paule7nent 
in the youngest of his household. A chief, whose 
military eye had not been dulled by age, would 



84 CAWNPOEE chap. 

have discerned the rare capabiHties for defence 
afforded by the magazine, which consisted of an 
immense walled inclosure, containing numerous 
buildings and an inexhaustible store of guns and 
ammunition. The position was watered, and at the 
same time protected in the rear, by the Ganges. 
The public offices and the Treasury were in the 
immediate vicinity, so that the records and the 
money might have been placed in safety at the 
cost of a few hours' labour. The doors of the 
jail would have been commanded by our cannon, 
and at least one tributary to the flood of disorder 
pent within its bounds. The native Government 
officials, who for the most part resided at Nawab- 
gunge, might have remained in communication with 
the civil authorities within the fortress ; and the 
garrison could have been readily supplied with pro- 
visions from the loyal villages in the neighbourhood, 
and, indeed, from the city itself; which, says our 
old friend Nanukchund, " was like a certain wife 
"who used to act up to the wishes of her husband, 
"because she feared him, and then could also 
"protect herself; but, when her husband died, she 
" found herself under other people's control, and 
" lived in licence." He further observes that " the 
" Sahibs did the reverse of wisdom. They made 
"the intrenchment far out in the plain and outside 
" the city, without reflecting that, in case of mutiny 
"breaking out, it would be surrounded by the 
"rebels on all four sides, who would be assisted 
" by the artillery of the magazine, and the Govern- 
" ment treasure so temptingly thrown in their way. 
"Thus, to illustrate the proverb, the Sahibs put 



11 THE OUTBREAK 85 

"a sword into the enemy's hand, and thrust their 
" own heads forward." 

Such was indeed the case. If the choice of the 
site for our place of refuge had been confided to 
Azimoolah and Teeka Sing, they could not have 
selected one more favourable for the attack. The 
Dragoon hospital stood in the centre of a vast open 
space, flat with the flatness of Bengal, on the south 
bank of the canal which separated the military 
quarter from the native city, the bridge of boats, 
the civil station, and the magazine. The establish- 
ment consisted of two single-storied barracks sur- 
rounded by spacious verandahs ; each intended to 
afford accommodation for a company of a hundred 
men. The building that was somewhat the larger 
of the two was thatched with straw, which circum- 
stance alone rendered the position untenable. The 
other was roofed with concrete, a condition usually 
expressed by the word " pucka " ; that ubiquitous 
adjective which is the essential ingredient of Anglo- 
Indian conversation. Both houses were constructed 
of thin brickwork, hardly proof against the rays 
of an Eastern sun, and far too frail to resist a 
twenty-four pound shot. The hospital was provided 
with a due modicum of cooking sheds and servants' 
huts ; and in front of the thatched barrack was a 
well, protected by a slight parapet. By order of Sir 
Hugh these premises had been inclosed in a mud- 
wall of the shape of a rectangular parallelogram ; 
four feet in height ; three feet in thickness at the 
base ; and twenty-four inches at the crest, which 
was, therefore, pervious to a bullet from an Enfield 
rifle. The batteries were constructed by the very 



86 CAWNPORE chap. 

simple expedient of leaving an aperture of a size 
proportioned to the number of the guns : so that 
our artillerymen served their pieces, as in the field, 
with their persons entirely exposed to the fire of 
the enemy. 

Behind those slender bulwarks was gathered a 
mixed and feeble company, to the full sum of a 
thousand souls. Of these, four hundred and sixty- 
five were men, of every age and profession. Their 
wives and grown daughters were about two hundred 
and eighty in number, and their little ones at least 
as many. All who were able to bear arms, twenty 
score by tale, were at once called together, and told 
off in batches under their respective officers. The 
north side of the intrenchment, facing the river, was 
strengthened by a poor little triangular outwork, 
which our garrison entitled " the Redan " : as if to 
cheer themselves, during their cruel and inglorious 
struggle, with a reminiscence of chivalrous European 
warfare. This important post was intrusted to Major 
Vibart, of the Second Cavalry, assisted by Captain 
Jenkins. At the north-eastern corner. Lieutenants 
Ashe and Sotheby superintended a battery of one 
twenty-four-pounder howitzer and two nine-jDounders. 
Captain Kempland had charge of the east curtain, 
while at the south-eastern angle stood three nine- 
pounder guns under the charge of Lieutenants 
Eckford, Burney, and Delafosse ; of whom one was 
destined to show upon happier fields of battle how 
the soldiers of Cawnpore fought and bled. Next 
in order came the main-guard, held by Lieutenant 
Turnbull, and flanked by a tiny rifled piece carrying 
a three-pound ball, which was manned by a detach- 



IT THE OUTBREAK 87 

ment under the orders of Major Proiit. Towards 
the north, Lieutenants Dempster and Martin directed 
the working of three nine-pounders ; and their next 
neighbour was Captain Whiting, who felt the Redan 
with his right, and thus closed the circuit of the 
defence. The general supervision of the artillery 
devolved upon Major Larkins ; but that officer was 
incapacitated by illness from taking a very active 
part in the operations. 

There was no time to be lost. While the com- 
manders of the various posts were choosing their 
parties, and placing their sentries, and dispensing 
their share of the arms and ammunition, already the 
roar of great guns, and the clouds of black smoke 
rising fast and frequent in the north-west quarter, 
told them that the warning of the Nana was no 
empty menace. As when, during some great hurri- 
cane, the tidal wave comes surging up the river, 
unlooked for and irresistible, leaving in its track 
desolation and ruin, the wrecks of ships and the 
corpses of men — so on that morning, over doomed 
Cawnpore swept the returning flood of mutiny 
and misrule. At break of day the whole rebel 
array poured down the Delhi road in a compact 
body, with the Maharaja at their head, who had 
good reason to be proud of his following. It was 
a force which would have done credit to any 
Mahratta chief in the palmiest days of that re- 
doubted race. There was an entire regiment of 
excellent cavalry, well mounted and equipped. There 
was a detachment of gunners and drivers from the 
Oude Artillery, who had been despatched as a loan 
from Lucknow to Cawnpore, just in time to enable 



88 CAWNPORE chap. 

tliem to ^take part in the revolt. There were the 
Nana's own myrmidons, who made up by attach- 
ment to his cause what they wanted in miHtary 
skill. Lastly, there were three fine battalions of 
Bengal sepoys, led by experienced sepoy officers, 
armed with English muskets, and trained by English 
discipline. When the mutineers arrived at the out- 
skirts of the station, Teeka Sing, the General, post- 
poning his private gain and malice to the public 
good, repaired at once to the magazine, and spent 
the morning in securing a fleet of thirty boats which 
lay beneath the walls, laden with shot, shell, and 
heavy cannon. The guns in serviceable order he 
sent off towards the intrenchment on carriages drawn 
by Government bullocks ; and those which were not 
in condition for immediate use he compelled the 
artificers of the establishment to brush up on the 
Government lathes. But the main body of the in- 
surgents displayed no such foresight or self-control. 
They kept close order no longer, but spread them- 
selves out to the right and left, and, robbing, burn- 
ing, and murdering as they went, bore southwards 
over the civil quarter and the native city. Sir George 
Parker and a party of his friends, who, unobservant 
of the coming storm, were lingering over their last 
breakfast in his pleasant villa, had barely time to 
fly for their lives. Four office-clerks, who lived 
together in a shop on the banks of the canal, after 
a valiant resistance, were smoked out of their lodging, 
and slain as they fled. The troopers of the Second 
Cavalry galloped up and down the lanes of the black 
town, hunting for Englishmen; and the low-caste 
Mohammedans of the bazaar — the sword-polishers, the 



II THE OUTBKEAK 89 

cotton-spinners, and the dealers in silver ornaments 
— joined eagerly in the chase. One European was run 
down and worried to death in a garden. Another, a 
gentleman advanced in age, had concealed himself 
in a hut near the posting-house in company with his 
wife, his little daughter, and his son, a boy of sixteen 
years. The wretched family were tracked to their 
hiding-place, arrested, and dragged before the Nana, 
who ordered them for instant execution; and they 
were happy at least in this, that they died together 
and without delay. Proclamation was made that 
every building in which shelter had been given to 
Europeans, Eurasians, or Christians of any extrac- 
tion, should first be plundered, and then razed to 
the ground. This announcement provided the rebels 
with a pretext for breaking open and ransacking the 
dwellings of many respectable natives. Buddree 
Nath, the commissariat contractor, who was accused 
of secreting Lady Wheeler and her daughters, lost 
the savings of a lifetime in the course of a single 
hour. The scum of the city made the most of their 
period of hcence, and, when any portable property 
came in their way, took good care not to inquire very 
closely into the creed of the owner. Among others, 
the King of Oude is supposed to have suffered a 
heavy loss. Forty thousand rupees belonging to a 
Hindoo merchant were taken from a cart which 
stood in the premises of the post-office, and removed 
into the most blackguard districts of the neighbour- 
hood. A gang of cavalry soldiers went down the 
Street of Silver, the main thoroughfare of the town, 
beating in the doors of the cloth-merchants and 
money-changers, insulting the 'trembling tradesmen, 



90 CAWNPORE oitap. 

and carrying off all tlie valuables on which they 
could lay their hands. Meanwhile, those mutineers 
whose religious spite overcame their desire for lucre, 
were deriving intense enjoyment from the occupation 
of cannonading the church. Another large company 
of Brahmin sepoys, whose orthodox indignation took 
a more practical turn, and could not content itself 
with the somewhat tame pastime of persecuting 
senseless brick and plaster, marched off to the 
Mohammedan quarter ; bombarded the residence of 
the Nunhey Nawab, the most influential Mussulman 
noble of the vicinity ; blew open the gates ; smashed 
the glass-ware and the porcelain ; appropriated the 
contents of the wardrobe and the plate-chest ; and 
told the master of the house to consider himself a 
prisoner. They then proceeded to take into custody 
other leading gentlemen of the same persuasion, and 
returned to the Nana loaded with spoil, and followed 
by a line of sedan-chairs containing the persons of 
their captives. 

As the morning advanced, the reports of the 
musketry and the tumult of voices grew more and 
more distinct to the ears of our countrymen. Nearer 
and ever nearer rolled the flames of the blazing 
houses, and the white puffs which betokened the 
presence of artillery. At length, stung by a generous 
impatience. Lieutenant Ashe took out his guns to 
reconnoitre, accompanied by some five-and-twent}^ 
volunteers. The party had barely gone forward a 
quarter of a mile, when they caught sight of the 
rebel van, which had already passed the canal, and 
occupied in force the neighbourhood of the bridge. 
Our people returned faster than they went, and not 



„ THE OUTBREAK 01 

all; for one, at least, Lieutenant Asliburner, was 
never again seen or heard of; and poor Mr. Murphy, 
of the East Indian Railway, brought back with him 
a wound, to which he succumbed before the day was 
out. He enjoyed the melancholy honour of being 
buried in a solitary coffin which had been found in 
a corner of the hospital ; and shared with one other, 
a lady who died of fever, enviable in that she was 
the first, the privilege of being decently interred 
within the precincts of the intrenchment. There 
soon came to be scanty leisure for funeral rites. At 
ten o'clock the mutineers fired their first shot, from 
a nine-pounder gun, which they had brought down 
to the vacant lines of the First Infantry. The ball 
struck the crest of the mud Avail, and glided over 
into the smaller barrack, where it broke the leg of 
an unhappy native footman, who breathed his last in 
the course of the afternoon. This terrible and un- 
wonted visitor, the precursor of many, scared indoors 
a large assembly of ladies and children who were 
sitting and playing in and about the verandahs; 
and sent to their posts the fighting men, most of 
whom had now their earliest experience of the sen- 
sation produced by the rush of a round shot. 

And so the siege had begun. The first stroke had 
been played in that momentous contest, of which 
the stake was a thousand English lives; since no- 
thing remained for our countrymen to protect save 
their bare existences and the empty shadow of the 
British rule. The first game had gone against us. 
The Nana had won the regiments ; and the regiments 
had won their colours, their weapons, and their 
pay. Why needed they to grudge the losers their 



92 CAWNPORE chap. 

breath ? Why, for a possession of no value, except 
to the owner, should they deliberately commence a 
hazardous and protracted game of double or quits ? 
Power and authority, treasures and munitions, the 
sinews and the muscles of war, had alike passed over 
to the sepoys. What temptation was there to run 
the manifold public chances of battle, and incur the 
personal risk which none can avoid who bring angry 
Englishmen to bay, in order to destroy a handful of 
disheartened invalids and civilians, scarcely numer- 
ous enough to escort their women and children in 
safety to Allahabad through the perils of eddies, and 
quicksands, and bands of highwaymen recruited and 
emboldened in those months of general anarchy ? 

But it came to pass that their heart was hardened, 
and they would not let our people go. The ring- 
leaders of the mutiny knew well that their j^osition 
was one of utmost hazard. They had been too 
criminal to be forgiven, and too successful to be for- 
gotten. Henceforward their aim was to implicate 
their comrades beyond the hope of pardon ; to place 
between them and their former condition of life a 
gulf filled with English blood. And when the Nana 
exhorted his followers to slay and spare not, he 
spoke to willing ears; for between them and our 
countrymen there existed a degree of mutual dis- 
trust which could only end in mutual extermination. 
The minds of men were so agitated and disordered 
by anger and uneasiness, that the sole chance of life 
for either party lay in the utter destruction of the 
other. Already quarter was no longer given, and, 
indeed, could hardly be said to be worth the asking. 

A European knew that, if one set of Pandies enter- 



II THE OUTBKEAK 93 

tained any qualms of compassion or gratitude, the 
next squad who came across him would infallibly cut" 
his throat ; and a sepoy knew that, if his captors 
took the trouble to drag him about in their train for 
a few days, the magistrate at the first station on the 
road would have him hung before the officer in com- 
mand of the party had emerged from the bath-room. 
This was no generous rivalry of national vigour and 
skill and prowess. Little of hiilitary science was here, 
and less of military courtesy. With clenched teeth and 
bated breath, the Brahmin and the Saxon closed for 
the death-grapple ; well aware that, when once their 
fingers were on each other's throats, one only of the 
combatants would ever rise from the trampled sand. 
As soon as the Rubicon of insurrection had been 
passed, — as soon as the gauntlet of sedition had been 
thrown, — the first care of the mutineers was to get 
rid of all who had been the witnesses of their guilt, 
and who might hereafter be the judges. No sepoy 
fdlt secure of his neck and plunder as long as one 
solitary Englishman remained on Indian soil. The 
revolted soldier desired with a nervous and morbid 
anxiety to get quit of the Sahibs by fair means or 
foul. He did not care to expose us to unnecessary 
misery and humiliation; to torture our men, or to 
outrage our women. His sole object was to see the 
last of us : to get done with us for good and for ever. 
Ignorant beyond conception of European geography 
and statistics, he had convinced himself that, if once 
the Anglo-Indians of every sex and age were killed 
off, from the Governor-General to the Sergeant-major's 
baby, there did not exist the wherewithal to replace 
them. He conceived that Great Britain had been 



94 CAWNPORE chap. 

draiiied dry of men to recruit the garnson of our 
Asiatic empire ; that our home population consisted 
of nurses and children, of invalids who had left the 
East for a while in quest of health, and veterans 
who had retired to live at ease on their share of the 
treasures of Hindostan. He fancied that the tidings 
of a general massacre of our people would render 
our island a home of helpless mourners : he found 
that those tidings changed it into a nest of pitiless 
avengers. He believed our power to be a chimera, 
and he discovered it to be a hydra. He learned too 
late that he had digged a j)it for himself, and had 
fallen into the ditch which he had made : that his 
mischief and his violent dealings had come down 
upon his own head : that Englishmen were many, 
and that, when the occasion served, their feet too 
were not sIoav to shed blood : that our soldiers could 
kill within the year more heathen than our mis- 
sionaries had converted in the course of a century : 
that our social science talk about the sacredness of 
human life, and our May Meeting talk concerning 
our duty towards those benighted souls for whom 
Christ died, meant that we were to forgive most of 
those who had never injured us, and seldom hang 
an innocent Hindoo if we could catch a guilty one : 
that the great principles of mercy and justice and 
charity must cease to be eternally true until the 
injured pride of a mighty nation had been satisfied, 
its wrath glutted, and its sway restored. 

But though apprehension and dislike had inspired 
the rebels with a determination to destroy every 
Englishman off the face of the land, had they no 
feeling of ruth for the sufferings and the fate of our 



11 THE OUTBREAK 95 

women ? Never in European warfare lias the yword 
been deliberately pointed at a female breast ; save 
dming those rare seasons, indelible from memory 
and inexpiable by national remorse, when, after the 
mad carnao-e of a successful escalade, drunkenness 
and licence have ruled the hour. If the Nana knew 
the valour and strength of our officers too well to 
allow him to be merciful, how came it that he did 
not respect the weakness of our ladies ? No one 
can rightly read the history of the mutineers unless 
he constantly takes into account the wide and radi- 
cal difference between the views held by Europeans 
and Asiatics with reference to the treatment and 
position of the weaker sex. We who live among 
the records and associations of chivalry still make 
it our pride to regard women as goddesses. The 
Hindoos, who allow their sisters and daughters few 
or no personal rights ; the Mohammedans, who do 
not even allow them souls; cannot bring themselves 
to look upon them as better than playthings. The 
pride of a Mussulman servant is painfully wounded 
by a scolding from the mistress of the house, and he 
takes every opportunity of showing his contempt for 
her by various childish impertinences. Among the 
numberless symptoms of our national eccentricity, 
that which seems most extraordinary to a native 
is our submitting to be governed by a woman. And 
as a Hindoo fails to appreciate the social standing 
of an English lady, so it is to be feared that he gives 
her little credit for her domestic virtues. Her free 
and unrestrained life excites in his mind the most 
singular and unjust ideas. To see women walking 
in public, driving about in open carriages, dining, 



96 CAWNPORE chap. ii. 

and talking, and dancing with men connected with 
them neither by blood nor marriage, never fails to 
produce upon him a. false and unfortunate impres- 
sion.* And therefore it happened that a sepoy 
corporal, whose estimate of a European lady was 
curiously compounded of contempt, disapprobation, 
and misconception, was little adapted to entertain 
for her sentiments of knightly tenderness and 
devotion. In the eyes of such a man every English- 
woman was but the mother of an English child, and 
every English child was a sucking tyrant. The 
wolves, with their mates and whelps, had been 
hounded into their den, and now or never was the 
time to smoke them out, and knock on the head the 
whole of that formidable brood. And so, on the 
first Saturday of that June, — these, bent on a whole- 
sale butchery : those, prepared to play the man for 
their dear life, and for lives dearer still, — with 
widely different hope, but with equal resolution, on 
either side of the meagre rampart, besiegers and 
besieged mustered for the battle. 

* In The Mirror of Bidigo, a vernacular drama which has 
gained for itself a niclie in Indian history, and contribnted a 
rather remarkable page to the Law Reports of the Calcutta 
tribunals, the following passage occurs in a conversation 
between two native women : — 

Behoti, Moreover, the wife of the Indigo-planter, in order 
to make her husband's case strong, has sent a letter to the 
magistrate, since it is said that the magistrate hears her words 
most attentively, 

Adwie. 1 saw the lady. She has no shame at all. When the 
magistrate of the district (whose name occasions great terror) 
goes riding about through the village, the lady also rides on 
horseback with him. Riding about on a horse ! Because the 
aunt of Kezi once laughed before the elder brother of her 
husband, all people ridiculed her : while this was the magis- 
trate of the district. 



CHAPTER III 

THE SIEGE 

THE intelligence of the revolt speedily travelled 
over all surrounding districts, and attracted to 
the spot the entire available blackguardism of the 
neighbourhood. The disloyal and insolvent land- 
holders for thirty miles about called out their 
tenantry and retainers, and made the best of their 
way to Cawnpore. Some chieftains brought two 
hundred armed followers ; others four hundred. One 
Rajah came with a tail of forty score : while Bho- 
wany Sing, whom Nanukchund designates as " that 
old and notorious scoundrel," marched into the rebel 
camp at the head of twelve hundred matchlock-men. 
No one seems to have entertained any doubt as to 
the final extinction of our sway. The old order of 
things had disappeared for ever, and it behoved any 
feudal leader who had ambition or necessities to be 
present and ready to assert himself ere the new 
order was definitely established. The Nana was 
first to seize the occasion by the forelock. A trusty 
adherent was sent to Bithoor with an escort of 
twenty horse to announce the commencement of 
the Mahratta rule. It was a terrible hour for the 
personal enemies of him who had assumed the 

H 



98 CAWNPOEE cHAr. 

prime authority. As soon as it became known that 
their master was in power, the idle ruffians who 
swarmed in his palace at once proceeded to gratify 
his spite and their own wanton cruelty. They 
forced the doors of Goordeen, who acted as agent 
to the widows of Bajee Rao, the late Peishwa ; 
knocked down his house about his ears; slew his 
people ; and ended by blowing him from the mouth 
of a cannon. They seized the attendants of Chimna 
Apa, who pulled the strings of the lawsuit brought 
against the Maharaja by his cousin, loaded them 
with chains, and informed them that they were to 
be put to death as soon as the captors could find 
leisure to cut off their hands and noses. Nanuk- 
chund, who had been the leading counsel in "the 
case, was warned in time of the impending danger. 
He sent word to his juniors to provide for their 
own safety, and himself sought concealment in an 
unfurnished house belonging to one of his friends, 
whence he observed the progress of the insurrection 
with a penetration that was occasionally distorted 
by present terror and the anticipation of future 
advancement. 

On the morning of Sunday, the seventh of June, 
a proclamation in two languages was issued at 
Cawnpore from the press of a schoolmaster, and 
distributed by his pupils, adjuring all true Hindoos 
and Mussulmans to unite in defence of their religions, 
and rally round the person of the Nana. Neither 
Mussulmans nor Hindoos were slow to obey the 
call. The residents of the Butcher's Ward forth- 
with set up the green standard, and were joined 
by the dregs of the population. Respectable Moham- 



Ill THE SIEGE 99 

medans at first held aloof; but next day the banner 
was removed to an open square, south of the canal, 
whither a large and influential body of the faithful 
repaired to do homage to the symbol of their religion. 
Azeezun, the Demoiselle Theroigne of the revolt, 
appeared on horseback amidst a group of her ad- 
mirers, dressed in the uniform of her favoured regi- 
ment, armed with pistols, and decorated with medals. 
A priest of high consideration seated himself beneath 
the flag, rosary in hand, and endeavoured by prayer 
and meditation to ascertain whether the day was 
propitious for an attack upon the stronghold of 
the infidel. His piety, however, was cut short by 
a round-shot from Lieutenant Dempster's battery, 
which sent the assemblage of believers scuttling to 
the nearest cover : upon which the holy man bundled 
together his beads, tucked up his robes, and made 
o& with a precipitation not altogether consistent 
with the doctrine of fatalism. 

Meanwhile throughout and around the town were 
being gathered in the gleanings of that harvest of 
murder. A miserable family of the name of Mackin- 
tosh was discovered lurking under a bridge disguised 
in native clothes, their faces stained with pitiful 
want of skill in imitation of the Hindoo complexion. 
A road overseer was caught with his wife and 
children to the north of the station; and another 
person employed in the same department, who 
had found a temporary refuge beneath the roof of 
an individual whom he had formerly obliged with 
a contract, was now turned adrift, and taken by 
the bloodhounds who were scouring the city. To 
each and all of these capture was death, instant. 



100 CAWNPORE CHAP. 

inexorable. The Maharaja had despatched a party 
of sepoys to the residence of Mr. Edward Greenway, 
a man of considerable property, who had given 
shelter to an officer recently cashiered by court- 
martial. This latter gentleman now proved that 
in whatever military qualities he might have been 
deficient, courao^e, at least, was not amono^st them ; 
for he defended the threshold of his host until the 
last cartridge had been expended, and then walked 
in among the assailants, and bade them cut his 
throat: an invitation to which they eagerly responded. 

They then secured Mr. Greenway, his wife, his 
sister, and his little ones, and brought them as 
prisoners to the Nana ; who ordered them into con- 
finement with the expectation of obtaining a ransom, 
and the intention of killing them whether or not 
the money was forthcoming. He for one had no 
notion of permitting his avarice to clash with his 
barbarity. 

As the excitement of tracking down and unearth- 
ing Englishmen began to languish on account of 
the growing scarcity of victims, the mutineers 
gradually betook themselves to the more serious 
business of the siege. During the whole of Saturday 
Teeka Sing had been hard at work in the Arsenal, 
mounting the great guns, and despatching them 
successively to the scene of action. As fast as each 
piece arrived, it was placed in position, and manned 
by a party of volunteers. By noon on Sunday the 
cordon of batteries was complete, and our intrench- 
ment was raked by twenty-four-pound shot from 
every quarter of the compass. Now became patent 
to the most inexperienced eye the fatal and irre- 



j„ THE SIEGE 101 

mediable defects of the site which our General 
had selected for the fortification. The Dragoon 
hospital was entirely surrounded by large and solid 
buildino-s, at distances varying from three to eight 
hundred yards: buildings from which the assailants 
derived protection at least as effectual as that 
aiforded to the garrison by their improvised defences. 
From roof and window poured a shower of bullets 
during the hours of daylight, while after dusk troops 
of sepoys hovered about within pistol-shot, and made 
night hideous with incessant volleys of musketry. 
Henceforward, there was but little sleep for our 
countrymen. . 

The annals of warfare contain no episode so 
painful as the story of this melancholy conflict. 
It is a story which needs not comment or embellish- 
ment Whether related in the inornate language ot 
official con-espondence, or in the childish phraseology 
of Hindoo evidence, it moves to tears as surely as 
the pages in which the greatest of all historians 
tells the last agony of the Athenian host m Sicily, 
The sun never before looked on such a sight as a 
crowd of women and children cooped witlim a small 
space, and exposed during twenty days and nights 
to the concentrated fire of thousands of muskets 
and a score of heavy cannon. At first eveiy 
projectile which struck the barracks was the signal 
for heartrending shrieks, and low wailmg more 
heartrending yet: but, ere long, time and habit 
taught them to suffer and to fear in silence. Before 
the third evening every window and door had been 
beaten in. Next went the screens, the piled-up 
furniture, and the internal partitions: and soon 



102 CAWNPORE chap. 

shell and ball ranged at will through and through 
the naked rooms. Some ladies were slain outright 
by grape or round-shot. Others were struck down 
by bullets. Many were crushed beneath falling 
brickwork, or mutilated by the splinters which flew 
from shattered sash and panel. Happy were they 
whose age and sex called them to the front of the 
battle, and dispensed them from the spectacle of 
this passive carnage. Better to hear more distinctly 
the crackle of the sepoy musketry, and the groans of 
wounded wife and sister more faintly.- If die they 
both must, such was the thought of more than one 
husband, it was well that duty bade them die apart. 
Never did men fight with more signal determina- 
tion against more fearful odds. Not at Fontenoy, 
not at Arcot, not at Albuera was British endurance 
so stubborn, or British valour so conspicuous. For, 
while the besiegers worked their guns under cover, 
the artillerymen of the besieged stood erect upon 
the bare plain. While the besiegers possessed un- 
bounded store of huge mortars and battering-guns, 
the besieged had a few cannon too small for effica- 
cious service in the field. While disease and the 
accidents of combat hourly diminished the numbers 
of those within, the ranks without were daily swollen 
by regiments of recent mutineers and fresh clans of 
rebels. But circumstances such as these are best 
adapted to exhibit the strange humour of the 
English warrior. With all that was most dear at 
their backs, and in front all that was most hateful, 
and, in their view, most contemptible, undaunted 
and not uncheerful our countrymen bore up the fray. 
From the very earliest days of the attack it became 



Ill THE SIEGE 103 

apparent that old Sir Hugli was unequal to the 
exposure and fatigue involved in the conduct of the 
struggle, and in the inspection and re-distribution of 
the posts, a labour rendered only too severe by the 
deadly fire of the enemy. In such a strait men act as 
acted those ten thousand Greeks, when by the banks 
of far Euphrates their chief had been slain and their 
allies scattered to the winds. " Then," says Xeno- 
phon, " Clearchus took the command, and the rest 
"obeyed; not as having chosen him by formal 
"election, but because they saw that he, and he 
" alone, had the temper of a general." The Clearchus 
of Cawnpore was Captain Moore, an officer in charge 
of the invalids of the Thirty-second Foot. He was a 
tall, fair, blue-eyed man, glowing with animation and 
easy Irish intrepidity. Wheresoever there was most 
pressing risk, and wheresoever there was direst 
wretchedness, his pleasant presence was seldom 
long wanting. Under the rampart; at the bat- 
teries; in some out-picket, where men were dropping 
like pheasants under a fearful cross-fire; in some 
corner of the hospital, to a brave heart more fearfal 
still, where lay the mangled forms of those young 
and delicate beings whom war should always spare : 
— ever and everywhere was heard his sprightly voice 
speaking words of encouragement, of exhortation, of 
sympathy, and even of courteous gallantry. Wher- 
ever Moore had passed he left men something more 
courageous, and women something less unhappy. 
It is well when such leaders are at hand. It is ill 
when they are discovered and promoted too late to 
undo the evil that has been already done. 

Across the south-western angle of the intrench- 



104 CAWNPORE CHAP. 

ment ran a line of barracks which were still in course 
of erection. They each measured some two hundred 
feet in length, and were constructed of red brick, 
which had not as yet received that coat of white 
plaster that reduces all Anglo-Indian house decora- 
tion to a uniformity of colour diversified only by the 
various degrees of age and shabbiness. Of these, the 
buildings marked in the plan by the numbers 2, 3, 
and 4, were in close proximity to the corner of our 
fortification, the entire extent of which they com- 
manded, inasmuch as their walls had been already 
completed to an elevation of forty feet. None of the 
others had been raised to a height of more than two 
or three yards from the level of the ground. The 
floors had not been laid, nor the bamboo poles 
removed, which, rudely spliced together, form the 
cheap but frail scaffolding of Hindoo architecture : 
and the ground both within and without, along the 
whole row, was thickly covered with piles of the 
materials used in the progress of the works. From 
the very first the sepoys possessed the northern half 
of the range : but they never succeeded in obtaining 
a hold on Barrack Number Four, which was defended 
by a party of civil engineers who had been em- 
ployed upon the East Indian Railroad. These gentle- 
men, over and above that indigenous aptitude for 
conflict common to all Englishmen of the upper 
classes, had acquired, during years spent in survey- 
ing, a trained sharpness of vision and a correct judg- 
ment of distance which rendered them peculiarly 
dangerous when placed behind the sights of an 
Enfield rifle. For three days these amateurs baflled 
every attempt of the enemy : but at the end of that 



iir THE SIEGE 105 

period the assaults of the enemy became so tierce 
and frequent that they were not sorry to accept the 
services of a fighting man by profession. And so 
there came across to them from the Redan Captain 
Jenkins, a vaHant soldier, foredoomed to a death of 
anguish extraordinary even at such a time. 

Whether the mutineers were aware of this intro- 
duction of the military element, or whether they 
already had learned to respect civilian skill and 
bravery, from this time forth they desisted from 
their efforts in that quarter, and turned their atten- 
tion to the southernmost of the unfinished erections, 
which they proceeded to occupy in great force. 
Hereupon Lieutenant Glanville was posted with a 
small detachment in the adjoining barrack, which 
thenceforward was recognized by both parties as the 
key of our position. What the farm of Hougoumont 
was at Waterloo, — what the sand-bag battery was at 
Inkerman, — that was Barrack Number Two in the 
death-wrestle of Cawnpore. How furious was the 
strife, — how desperate the case of the little garrison, 
may be gathered from the fact that, though only 
sixteen in number, they had a surgeon to them- 
selves, who never lacked ample employment. Glan- 
ville came under his hands, desperately wounded : 
and the vacancy thus caused was soon after supplied 
by Lieutenant Mowbray Thomson of the Fifty-sixth 
Native Infantry. This officer did his best to lose a 
life which destiny seemed determined to preserve in 
order that England might know how, in their exceed- 
ing distress, her sons had not been unmindful of 
her ancient honour. " My sixteen men," he writes, 
" consisted in the first instance of Ensign Henderson 



106 CAWNPORE chap. 

" of the Fifty-sixtli Native Infantry, five or six of the 
" Madras FusiHers, two plate-layers from the railway 
" works, and some men of the Eighty-fourth Regi- 
''ment. The first instalment was soon disabled. 
" The Madras Fusiliers were armed with the Enfield 
" rifle, and consequently they had to bear the brunt 
" of the attack. They were all shot at their posts. 
" Several of the Eighty-fourth also fell : but, in con- 
" sequence of the importance of the position, as soon 
" as a loss in my little corps was reported, Captain 
"Moore sent us over a reinforcement from the in- 
"trenchment. Sometimes a civilian, sometimes a 
" soldier came. The orders given us were, not to 
" surrender with our lives, and we did our best to 
" obey them." 

Nothing contributed so much to check the spread 
of the rebellion of 1857 as the individual courage 
and pugnacity of our countrymen resident in the 
East. Civil and military alike, they were all skilled 
in the use of weapons, and cool in the presence of 
personal danger. Such a habit of body and mind 
they acquired both for policy and for pleasure. 
Every Anglo-Indian is well aware that he is one of 
an imperial race, holding its own in the midst of a 
subject population by dint of foresight and martial 
prowess. There were villages of evil reputation 
which on the day of assessment the collector pre- 
ferred to visit on the back of the steadiest Arab 
in his stables, with a favourite hog spear carelessly 
balanced beside his right stirrup. There were no- 
torious bits of road where the traveller felt more 
comfortable if he heard from time to time the lock 
of his revolver clankinof ao'ainst the soda-water 



Ill THE SIEGE 107 

bottles in the pocket of his palauqiiiu. Never was 
there a better training-school for warfare than the 
Indian hunting- field. A man who has heard un- 
moved above his head the scream of a crippled 
elephant, — who behind his trusty Westley Richards 
has awaited, calm and collected, the last rush of a 
wounded tiger, — need not doubt what his behaviour 
may be in any possible emergency. He who, like 
more than one true sportsman, has hardly crawled 
away, bloody knife in hand, from the embrace of a 
dying bear, — who has kept at bay a forty-inch boar 
with the butt of his shivered lance, — will not be 
at a loss how to meet the charge of a mutinous 
trooper. The rebels found to their cost that the 
Sahibs, like old stalkers of large game, were seldom 
foolhardy and never remiss ; — that they were neither 
fluttered by peril nor over-excited by success; — 
that they rarely failed to make the most of what 
cover they could get, and still more rarely wasted a 
cartridge. Lieutenant Thomson contrived a sort of 
perch half-way up the wall of his barrack, in which 
he stationed a young officer, named Stirling, of high 
repute as a marksman, who soon jDroved that a rebel 
running home to his dinner was at least as easy to 
hit as an ibex bounding down the crags in a 
Himalayan valley, or a blue cow dodging in and 
out amidst the trunks of an Oude forest. 

The whole of this range of buildings not included 
within our posts was literally alive with sepoys. They 
could distinctly be heard scampering along in troops, 
like rats behind an antique wainscot, chattering, 
yelling, or screaming under the emotion of the 
moment. From door, and window, and drain, and 



108 CAWNPORE chap 

loophole they fired away at our stronghold, accom- 
panying each shot with a taunt, conveying, in Oriental 
fashion, a random but painful statement concerning 
a remote ancestress of the person addressed. Ever 
and anon a fanatic, inspired by some vile drug, would 
issue forth into the open, brandishing his sword, in 
order to indulge himself in a dance of defiance ; on 
all which occasions Lieutenant Stirling took good 
care that the performance should not meet with an 
encore. When the enemy became more than usually 
troublesome, the picket which was most hardly 
pressed would invite their neighbours to come over 
and assist them : and then the combined force of 
some thirty bayonets sallied forth to sweep the line 
of barracks, chasing the foe before them ; killing the 
bolde,st and slowest of foot; knocking on the head 
such as were drunk or asleep ; shooting down those 
who, in their anxiety to get a good aim, had 
ensconced themselves too high up to be able to 
climb down on so short a notice; and driving the 
rest out, and across the plain : at which point the 
gunners of the intrenchment took up the work, and 
plied the flying multitude with grape and canister. 
During one of the earliest of these sorties eleven 
mutineers were captured, and brought into the in- 
trenchment. As no sentry could just then be spared 
from the front, they were placed under the charge 
of Bridget Widdowson, a stalwart dame, wife of a 
private of the Thirty-second Regiment. Secured by 
the ver}^ insufficient contrivance of a single rope, 
passed from wrist to wrist, they sat quietly on the 
ground like good school-children, while the matron 
walked up and down in front of the row, drawn 



in THE SIEGE 109 

sword in hand. After she had been reHeved by a 
warder of the other sex, they all managed to slip 
off: and from that time forward it was generally 
understood that prisoners were to be left on the spot 
where they had been caught, with the jackal and 
the vulture as their jailers. A captive, as long as 
he remained in custody, was a consumer of precious 
food; and at once became the most dangerous of 
spies, if he succeeded in making his escape to the 
rebel lines with a report of our destitute condition. 

On Friday, the twelfth, the insurgents made their 
first general assault upon our position. The cavalry, 
who on that day week had been the first in the 
career of sedition, were now with some difficulty 
prevailed upon to dismount and lead the way to 
glory; but after the loss of two of their number 
they concluded that enough had been done to sustain 
the credit of their branch of the service, and retired 
to console themselves for their repulse in the opium 
shops of the suburbs. The sepoy infantry next 
advanced to try their fortune, followed by all the 
rabble of the bazaars. They came on like men, but 
they went thither where there were men likewise. 
It was not thus that our rampart was to be won. 
Every Enghsh soldier had ready to his hand from 
three to ten muskets loaded with ball and slug : for 
there was a plentiful stock of small-arms within the 
fortification. The civihan held his thumb pressed 
tight upon the hammer of a pet smooth-bore, with 
a charge of Number Four shot for close quarters 
snugly packed in the left-hand barrel. The officer 
in command of the battery was feeling for the leaden 
tip in each chamber of his revolver, as he gave his 



no CAWNPORE CHAP. 

final order to take time and aim below the cross- 
belts. Our people were composed and confident. 
Sending quiet shots from behind a wall into the 
middle of a crowd was child's play compared with 
the daylong hazard of the crashing cannonade. After 
a short but bitter engagement the assailants with- 
drew, leaving on the field many of their comrades. 
Profiting by this harsh lesson they returned hence- 
forward to their old tactics, and applied themselves 
to pound out the life of our garrison by an unremit- 
ting storm of ball, and bomb, and bullet. 

Few, and ever fewer, in number ; overmatched in 
weight of metal ; ill-provided with ammunition, and 
protected by not an inch of cover, our artillerymen 
still sustained the hot debate. Lieutenant Ashe 
went through his work with a display of professional 
interest that would not have disgraced Sir William 
Armstrong during a trial match at Shoeburyness. 
After each round the besiegers saw with astonish- 
ment the zealous young Sahib leap on the heel of 
the discharged gun, spy-glass in hand, heedless of 
the missiles which were chirping round his ears. 
Unfortunately eight out of our ten pieces were nine- 
pounders, and the supply of nine-pound balls was 
soon expended. Reduced to load with shot a size 
too small, our officers could not secure accuracy in 
their practice. The gunners in our south-eastern 
battery had suffered much from a small piece which 
the sepoys had contrived to hoist into position 
amidst the debris of one among the half-built bar- 
racks. Lieutenant Delafosse, after despatching a 
number of six-pound balls in the direction of the 
embrasure without any perceptible result, at length 



Ill THE SIEGE 111 

resolved to bring the matter to a conclusion in one 
way or another. He rammed down three cannon- 
balls, filled up the chinks with grape, bade his men 
stand back, and fired off this portentous charge. 
To his surprise and delight his own gun did not 
burst, and nothing more was ever heard of the tire- 
some little antagonist. The same officer, somewhat 
later in the siege, was in the north-eastern battery 
when the carriage of a cannon was ignited by an un- 
lucky accident. The situation was most critical, for 
the woodwork, which had stood beneath the June 
sun until it was dry as tinder, blazed furiously, 
and there was imminent risk of a general explosion 
of all the powder in the battery. The rebels dis- 
cerned the opportunity, and concentrated their fire 
upon the spot where Delafosse, stretched at length 
on his back beneath the gun, was pulling down 
the burning splinters and scattering earth upon the 
flames. By the aid of two private soldiers he extin- 
guished the conflagration, though eighteen-pound 
and twenty-four-pound shot were flying past at the 
rate of six a minute. With such examples before 
them, people of no class or calling were behindhand 
in acts of daring when the common safety was at 
stake. One Jacobi, a coachmaker by trade, and, 
to judge from his appellation, a person of mixed 
parentage, descried on the roof of the magazine a 
fire-ball, which he mistook for a live shell. Under 
this impression he clambered up, secured the object 
of his apprehension, and heaved it over the breast- 
work with a sigh of relief. There was many a Cross 
of Victoria earned in that camp, where victory was 
not, nor any reasonable chance of victory. 



112 CAWNPOEE CHAP. 

But the contest was too unequal to last long. By 
the end of the first week our fifty-nine artillerymen 
had all been killed and wounded at their posts. Of 
the officers to whom the charge of the guns had 
originally been intrusted, few had escaped unhurt 
from the hail of lead and iron, or the hardly less 
deadly rays of the Indian noon. Sunstroke had 
killed Major Prout. Captain Kempland was stretched 
on the floor of the barrack, dazed and powerless. 
His next in command, Lieutenant Eckford, a soldier 
of high promise and an accomplished gentleman, 
while snatching half-an-hour's repose under the roof 
of the verandah, was struck full on the heart by a 
cannon-ball. In the west quarter Dempster had 
been shot dead, and from the same battery Martin 
had been carried into the hospital with a bullet in 
his lungs. For a while volunteers endeavoured to 
supply the place of the trained gunners ; and all was 
done that could be expected from bandsmen, and 
opium agents, and telegraph-clerks firing six-pound 
balls out of damaged nine-pounders, while exposed 
without protection to a murderous discharge from 
siege guns and heavy mortars. There could be only 
one termination to such a business. Our only 
howitzer was knocked clean off its carriage. One 
cannon lost the entire muzzle. Some had their sides 
beaten in, some their vents blown out. At length 
our park of artillery was reduced to a couple of 
pieces, which were withdrawn under cover, loaded 
with grape, and reserved for the purpose of repelling 
an assault. And even of these the bore had been 
injured to such an extent that the canister could not 
be driven home. Our poor ladies, accordingly, in 



ni • THE SIEGE ll3 

rivalry of those somewhat apocryphal Carthagiuian 
dames who twisted their hair into bowstrings, gave 
up their stockings to supply the case for a novel but 
not unserviceable cartridge. Since the days when 
the shopmen of Londonderry loaded their quaint old 
ordnance with brickbats wrapped in strips of gutter- 
piping, necessity has, perhaps, never been brought 
to bed of a more singular offspring. 

As our reply waxed more faint and ever fainter, 
the fire of the enemy continued to augment in 
volume, in rapidity, and in precision. The list of 
individual casualties mounted up in increasing ratio, 
and before long our misfortunes culminated in a 
wholesale disaster. Grave fears had been enter- 
tained for the security of the thatched barrack by 
every man who had the common sense to see that 
fire would burn straw. There were found some who, 
with admirable self-devotion, had scrambled on to 
that lead-bespattered slope, and essayed to cover 
with tiles and rubbish the inflammable material of 
the roof. On the eighth evening of the bombard- 
ment a lighted carcase settled among the rafters, 
and the whole building was speedily in a blaze. It 
happened most unfortunately that this barrack, as 
affording the better shelter and the less confined 
space, had been selected for the accommodation of 
our wounded and our sick. No effort was spared, 
no hazard shunned to rescue those who could not 
help themselves : but in spite of everything which 
could be tried, two brave men perished a little sooner 
than their fellows, and by a rather more distressing 
fate. That was indeed a night of horror. The roar 
of the flames, lost every ten seconds in the peal of 



Ii4 CAWNPOUE CHAP. 

the rebel artillery ; the whistle of the great shot ; 
the shrieks of the sufferers, who forgot their pain in 
the helpless anticipation of a sudden and agonizing 
death; the groups of crying women and children 
huddled together in the ditch ; the stream of men 
running to and fro between the houses, laden with 
sacks of provisions and kegs of ammunition, and 
private property of value, and living burdens more 
precious still; the guards crouching silent and 
watchful, finger on trigger, each at his station along 
the external wall; the forms of countless foes, 
revealed now and again by the fitful glare, prowling 
around through the outer gloom; — these sights and 
sounds combined to form a scene and a chorus which 
will be ever memorable to the trio of actors who 
lived through the catastrophe of that awful drama. 

Captain Moore thought it well to give the enemy 
an early and a convincing proof that the spirit of our 
people was not broken by this great calamity. At 
the dead of the ensuing night he stole out from the 
intrenchment with fifty picked men at his heels in 
the direction of the chapel and the racket-court. 
Beginning from this point, the party hurried down 
the rebel lines under favour of the darkness, doing 
whatever rapid mischief was practicable. They sur- 
prised in untimely slumber some native gunners, 
who never waked again ; spiked and rolled over 
several twenty-four pounders ; gratified their feelings 
by blowing up a piece which had given them special 
annoyance ; and got back, carrying in their arms four 
of their number, and leaving another behind : — a 
service brilliant indeed, but barren of results : for 
the sepoys had only to resolve on the calibre that 



Ill THE SIEGE 115 

tliey preferred, and the number of cannon wliicli they 
could conveniently work, and then take at will from 
the arsenal so inconsiderately placed at their dis- 
posal. This chivalrous act, one among many such, 
at that time passed without reward or public ap- 
proval. When in a water-logged vessel men are 
toiling for their lives, who observes whether his 
neighbour does more or less at the pumps than 
he, provided all do their utmost ? And when they 
have betaken themselves to the boats, and are 
rowing against time and famine, who cares which of 
the crew feathers most neatly, and which reaches 
forward with the straightest back ? This was no set 
duel of civilized nations : no stately tournament, 
wherein the champions fight beneath the eyes of a 
friendly people, ready with their praise and sym- 
pathy; where wounds are bandaged with a ribbon, 
and self-sacrifice entitles the hero to a corner in our 
modern Walhalla, the columns of the daily press. 
Rare were those who here had leisure or heart to 
take note, and they who survived to make report 
were rarer still. As during the ages before Atrides 
came on earth countless chieftains, unwept, un- 
known, sank into eternal oblivion because they 
lacked a sacred bard : so at Cawnpore many a soldier 
brave as Hodson of Hodson's Horse, nobly prodigal 
of himself as William Peel of the Shannon, dared, 
and fell, and was forgotten for want of a special 
correspondent. Correspondence there was, contain- 
ing much earnest entreaty for a rescue and some 
unconscious eloquence ; but too important matter 
had to be compressed into too small a compass to 
admit of panegyric or recommendation for honours 



116 CAWNPORE CHAP. 

and advanceinent. Several urgent missives found 
their way to Lucknow, rolled tightly into quills, 
sealed up, and hidden with mysterious art in and 
about the person of Hindoo messengers ; so curiously 
stowed away that in some cases it took almost as 
long to produce as to convey the note : though, if 
the rebels chanced to intercept the despatch, they 
generally abridged the operation by cutting in pieces 
the ill-starred courier. On the middle day of June 
the Lucknow surgeons extracted the following lines 
from the nose or ear of a native who had been 
fortunate and adroit enough to elude the manifold 
perils which beset those forty miles of road : — 

" From Sir H. J/. Whcdcr, K.G.B., to Martin 
G'uhhins, Esq. 

" My dear Gubbins, 
" We have been besieged since the sixth by the 
" Nana Sahib, joined by the whole of the native 
" troops, who broke out on the morning of the fourth. 
" The enemy have two 24-pounders, and several 
" other guns. We have only eight 9-pounders. The 
"whole Christian population is with us in a tem- 
"porary intrenchment, and our defence has been 
" noble and wonderful, our loss heavy and cruel 
" We want aid, aid, aid I Regards to Lawrence. 
" Yours, &c., 

" H. M. Wheeler. 
" 14th June, 
" Quarter-past 8 p.m. 

'' P.S. — If we had 200 men we could jDunish the 
''scoundrels and aid you." 



Ill THE SIEGE 117 

The nature of tlie reply may be gathered from 
an acknowledgment which it elicited from Captain 
Moore. The anniversary seems to have inspired his 
pen. Brief and manly, cheerful and yet thoughtful, 
it is such a letter as an English officer should write 
on the eighteenth of June. 

"From Captain Moore, EM. ^2d Foot, ISth 

June, 10 P.M. 
"Sir, 

"By desire of Sir Hugh Wheeler, I have the 
"honour to acknowledge your letter of the 16th. 

" Sir Hugh regrets you cannot send him the 200 
" men, as he believes with their assistance we could 
"drive the insurgents from Cawnpore, and capture 
"their guns. 

" Our troops, officers, and volunteers have acted 
" most nobly, and on several occasions a handful of 
" men have driven hundreds before them. Our loss 
"has been chiefly from the sun, and their heavy 
"guns. Our rations will last a fortnight, and we 
" are still well supplied with ammunition. Our guns 
"are serviceable. Report says that troops are ad- 
" vancing from Allahabad, and any assistance might 
"save our garrison. We, of course, are prepared to 
"hold out to the last. It is needless to mention 
" the name of those who have been killed, or died. 
"We trust in God, and if our exertions here assist 
"your safety, it will be a consolation to know that 
" our friends appreciate our devotion. Any news of 
" relief will cheer us. 

" Yours, &c., 

" J. Moore, Captain, 

" By order." " 32d Regiment. 



118 CAWNPORE CHAP. 

And now commenced to our brethren and sisters 
a period of unspeakable woe ; the ante-chamber of 
ruin ; the penultimate syllable of their dismal story. 
After the destruction of the thatched barrack, dearth 
of house-room forced two hundred of our women 
and children to spend twelve days of twice twelve 
hours without ceiling overhead or flooring under- 
foot. At night they lay on the bare ground, ex- 
posed to every noxious influence and exhalation that 
was abroad in the air ; and in the morning they 
rose, those among them who rose at all, to endure, 
bareheaded often, and always roofless, the blazing 
fury of the tropical beams. The men off guard 
attempted to contrive for them a partial protection, 
by stretching canvas screens across a framework of 
muskets and poles ; but these canopies were soon 
fired by the rebel shells, and the poor creatures were 
reduced to cower beneath the shelter of our earth- 
work, feebly chasing the shadow thrown by the sun 
as he rose and set. It is impossible for a home- 
staying Englishman to realize the true character of 
the great troubles in 1857, unless he constantly bears 
in mind that all which he reads was devised, and 
done, and endured beneath the vertical rays of an 
Eastern summer, and in a temperature varying from 
a hundred and twenty to a hundred and thirty-eight 
degrees in the shade. If there are any whose exjDeri- 
ence of heat is limited to a field-day at Wimbledon 
in the month of August, or to a tramp over 
Norfolk stubbles when the dogs are too thirsty to 
work, they will obtain a more just notion from a 
sad tale simply told than from pages of unscientific 
rhetoric, 



Ill THE SIEGE 119 

This is what befell Mrs. M , the wife of the 

surgeon at a certain station on the southern confines 
of the insurrection. " I heard," she says, " a num- 
"ber of shot fired, and, looking out, I saw my 
" husband driving furiously from the mess-house, 
"waving his whip. I ran to him, and, seeing a 
" bearer with my child in his arms, I caught her up, 
"and got into the buggy. At the mess-house we 
" found all the officers assembled, together with sixty 
"sepoys, who had remained faithful. We went off 
" in one large party, amidst a general conflagration 
" of our late homes. We reached the caravanserai at 
" Chattapore the next morning, and thence started 
" for Callinger. At this point our sepoy escort de- 
" serted us. We were fired upon by matchlock-men, 
" and one officer was shot dead. We heard, like- 
" wise, that the people had risen at Callinger, so 
" we returned and walked back ten miles that day. 

" M and I carried the child alternately. Pre- 

"sently Mrs. Smalley died of sunstroke. We had 
" no food amongst us. An officer kindly lent us a 
" horse. We were very faint. The Major died, and 
" was buried ; also the Sergeant-major, and some 
" women. The bandsmen left us on the nineteenth 
" of June. We were fired at again by matchlock- 
"men, and changed direction for Allahabad. Our 
" party consisted of nine gentlemen, two children, 
"the sergeant, and his wife. On the morning of 
" the twentieth, Captain Scott took Lottie on to his 
" horse. I was riding behind my husband, and she 
"was so crushed between us. She was two years 
" old on the first of the month. We were both weak 
" throus'h want of food and the effect of the sun. 



120 CAWNPORE chap. 

"Lottie and I had no head-covering. M had 

" a sepoy's cap I found on the ground. Soon after 
" sunrise we were followed by villagers armed with 
"clubs and s]3ears. One of them struck Captain 
" Scott's horse on the leg. He galloped off with 
" Lottie, and my poor husband never saw his child 
" again. We rode on several miles, keeping away 
"from villages, and then crossed the river. Our 

" thirst was extreme. M had dreadful cramps, 

" so that I had to hold him on the horse. I was 
" very uneasy about him. The day before I saw the 
" drummer's wife eating chupatties, and asked her 
" to give a ]3iece to the child, which she did. I now 
"saw water in a ravine. The descent was steep, 

"and our only drinking-vessel was M 's cap. 

" Our horse got water, and I bathed my neck, I 
"had no stockings, and my feet were torn and 
"blistered. Two peasants came in sight, and we 
" were frightened, and rode off. The sergeant held 

" our horse, and M put me up and mounted. 

" I think he must have got suddenly faint, for I 
" fell, and he over me, on the road, when the horse 
" started off. Some time before he said, and Barber, 
" too, that he could not live many hours. I felt he 
" was dying before we came to the ravine. He told 
" me his wishes about his children and myself, and 
" took leave. My brain seemed burnt up. No tears 
" came. As soon as we fell, the sergeant let go the 
"horse, and it went off; so that escape was cut off. 
" We sat down on the ground waiting for death. 
" Poor fellow ! he was very weak ; his thirst was 
" frightful, and I went to get him water. Some 
" villagers came, and took my rupees and watch, I 



Ill THE SIEGE 121 

"took off my wedding-ring, and twisted it in my 
" hair, and replaced the guard. I tore off the skirt 
" of my dress to bring water in, but it was no use, 
" for when I returned my beloved's eyes were fixed, 
" and, though I called and tried to restore him, and 
" poured water into his mouth, it only rattled in his 
" throat. He never spoke '^to me again. I held him 
"in my arms till he sank gradually down. I felt 
" frantic, but could not cry. I was alone. I bound 
" his head and face in my dress, for there was no 
" earth to bury him. The pain in my hands and 
" feet was dreadful. I went down to the ravine, 
" and sat in the water on a stone, hoping to get off 
" at night and look for Lottie. When I came back 
"from the water, I saw that they had not taken 
" her little watch, chain, and seals, so I tied them 
"under my petticoat. In an hour, about thirty 
" villagers came, they dragged me out of the ravine, 
" and took off my jacket, and found the little chain. 
" They then dragged me to a village, mocking me 
" all the way, and wondering whom I was to belong 
"to. The whole population came to look at me. 
" I asked for a bedstead, and lay down outside the 
" door of a hut. They had dozens of cows, and yet 
"refused me milk. When night came, and the 
"village was quiet, some old woman brought me a 
"leaf-ful of rice. I was too parched to eat, and 
" they gave me water. The morning after a neigh- 
"bouring Rajah sent a palanquin and a horseman 
" to fetch me, who told me that a little child and 
"three Sahibs had come to his master's house." 
And so the poor mother found her lost one, " greatly 
blistered," poor little creature. It is not for Euro- 



122 CAWNPORE chap. 

peans in India to pray that their flight be not in 
the winter. 

These women had spent their girlhood in the 
pleasant watering-places and country homes of our 
island, surrounded by all of English comfort and 
refinement that Eastern wealth could buy. Their 
later years had slipped away amidst the secure 
plenty and languid ease of a European household 
in India. In spacious saloons, alive with swing- 
ing j)unkahs ; where closed and darkened windows 
excluded the heated atmosphere, and produced a 
counterfeit night, while through a mass of wetted 
grass poured a stream of artificial air; with piles 
of ice, and troops of servants, and the magazines 
of the preceding month, and the sensation novels 
of the preceding season, monotonous, but not un- 
grateful, the even days flew by. Early married life 
has in Bengal peculiar charms. Planted down in 
some out-station, with no society save that of a 
casual road-surveyor or a distant planter, the world 
forgetting, and by the world remembered only at 
such times as there is talk concerning the chances 
of official promotion, the young pair have full 
leisure and a fair plea for indulging in that delicious 
habit of mutual selfishness which changes existence 
into a perpetual honeymoon, until that sorrowful 
epoch when the children are too old to be kept 
any longer in the enervating climate of Hindostan ; 
when the period arrives for writing to mothers-in- 
law, and sisters, and London bankers, and Brighton 
schoolmasters ; when even the pale pet of four years 
old, who still answers to the name of baby, must go 
home at the beoinnino^ of next cold season, and 



Til THE SIEGE 123 

ought to have gone before the end of last. Then 
begin the troubles of an Anglo-Indian family. 

But though such ladies are often destined to 
endure the wearing anxiety of an unnatural separ- 
ation, they never know what it is to experience a 
moment of physical privation. The services of 
menials, who make up by their number and obse- 
quiousness what they lack in energy ; the unwearied 
attention of an affectionate partner and friend, shield 
them from distress and excuse them from exertion. 
To have slept four in a cabin on board an outward- 
bound steamer; to have passed a night in a palan- 
quin, or a day at a posting-house where there was 
no tea, and only milk enough for the little ones, 
had hitherto appeared to the Cawnpore ladies the 
last conceivable extremity of destitution and discom- 
fort. Now, the Red Sea in July would have been 
to them an Elysium, and a luncheon on Peninsular 
and Oriental ale and cheese a priceless banquet. 
By a sudden turn of fortune they had been placed 
beneath the heel of those beings whom they had 
ever regarded with that unconscious aversion and 
contempt of race which is never so intense as in a 
female breast. Those who were to them most dear 
and trusted, were absent from their side, save when 
a not unkindly bullet released the husband from his 
post, and restored him to the wife, if but to die. 
Accustomed to those frequent ablutions which, in 
England at least a duty, are in India a necessity, 
they had not a single sjDongeful of water for wash- 
ing from the commencement to the close of the 
siege. They who, from childhood upwards, in the 
comprehensive and pretty phrase which ladies love. 



124 CAWNPORE chap. 

"liad had everything nice about them," were now 
herded together in fetid misery, where deUcacy 
and modesty were hourly shocked, though never 
for a moment impaired. Unshod, unkempt, ragged 
and squaHd, haggard and emaciated, parched with 
drought and faint with hunger, they sat waiting to 
hear " that they were widows. Each morning deej)- 
ened the hollow in the youngest cheek, and added a 
new furrow to the fairest brow. Want, exposure, 
and depression speedily decimated that hapless com- 
pany. In those regions, a hideous train of diseases 
stand always within call : fever and apoplexy, and 
the fell scourge of cholera and dysentery, plague 
more ghastly still. It was of fever that Miss Bright- 
man died, worn out with nursing a boy who had 
been shot through his first red coat. Sir George 
Parker, the cantonment magistrate, complained of 
sickness and headache, accompanied by a sensa- 
tion of drowsiness and oppression, which gradually 
deepened into insensibility, and thence into death. 
Such, too, was the fate of Colonel Williams of the 
Fifty-sixth Native Infantry, and of the Eev. Joseph 
Hooney, the Catholic priest, in spite of the devoted 
care of the Irish soldiery. The horrors which all 
shared and witnessed overset the balance of more 
than one highly-wrought organization. A missionary 
of the Propagation Society, as each day drew in, 
would brins^ his as^ed mother into the verandah for 
a breath of the evening. At length a musket-ball, 
shot, we may hope, at a venture, struck down the 
poor old lady with a painful wound. Her sufferings 
affected the reason of her son, and he died a raving 
maniac. Woe was it in those days unto them that 



Ill 



THE SIEGE 125 



were with cliild. There were infants born during 
the terrible three weeks ; infants who had no future. 
There were women who underwent more than all 
the anguish of maternity, with less than none of 
the hope and joy. The medical stores had all been 
destroyed in the conflagration. There remained no 
drugs, and cordials, and opiates ; no surgical instru- 
ments and appliances to cure, to alleviate, or to 
deaden. Perhaps it was as well that the absence 
of saws and tourniquets rendered impracticable the 
more critical operations : for here, as at Lucknow, 
it was found that, during the months of an Indian 
summer, within the circuit of a beleaguered fortifica- 
tion the consequences of amputation were invariably 
fatal. Science could not regret that she was power- 
less, when her most successful effort would hardly 
have prolonged an agony. 

But, besides the Nana, another foe, ruthless and 
pertinacious as he, had broken ground in front of 
our bulwarks. If our people had eaten as freely 
as they had fought, their provisions would have been 
consumed within the ten days : and human abstinence 
and endurance could not eke out the slender stock 
beyond the limit of some three Aveeks. Already 
the tins of preserved meats were empty, and the 
meal had fallen low in the casks ; and many barrels 
had been tapped by the enemy's shot, and the 
rest were ominously light. The store of luxuries 
contributed from the regimental mess-rooms had 
been shared by all ranks alike. A noble equality 
and fraternity reigned through the little republic. 

During that year our countrymen in India often 
debated, in a spirit by no means of idle speculation, 



126 CAWNPORE chap. 

whether a member of a blockaded force had a right 
to reserve food and drink for the exclusive support 
of himself, his family, and his intimate associates. 
That period was fruitful in questions of novel and 
momentous sophistry. Would a man be justified in 
shooting his wife if it was evident that she would 
otherwise fall alive into the power of the mutineers ? 
Would a European flying for his life be guilty of 
murder if he blew out the brains of an innocent 
villager who had unwittingly viewed him as he broke 
cover, and who might therefore give information to 
the pursuers of blood ? Morally guilty, that is to 
say : for it is difficult to conceive the circumstances 
under which a European would have been found 
legally guilty of the murder of a native during the 
year 1857. Might a colonel call out his men, and 
then mow them down with grape if it was certain 
that the regiment was on the eve of a revolt ? 
Might he if it was almost certain ? If it was most 
likely ? If it was barely possible ? These points 
were raised and determined off-hand by stern 
casuists, who, with a thrust or a shot, broke off the 
horns of a dilemma which would have sorely tried 
the subtlety of a Whately. 

Theories differed as to the lawfulness of a private 
store in time of siege : but the defenders of Cawn- 
pore were right in their ]3ractice; for, to take no 
higher ground, in the last extremity of war his own 
life is not more important to an individual than the 
life of his neighbour. During the first few days the 
private soldiers fared sparingly, but, for them, poor 
fellows, delicately enough. "Here might be seen 
" one," says Captain Thomson, " trudging away 



Ill THE SIEGE 127 

" from the main-guard laden with a bottle of chani- 
"pagne, a tin of preserved herrings, and a pot of 
"jam for his mess allowance. There would be 
" another with salmon, rum, and sweetmeats for his 
" inheritance." But very soon the dainties came 
to an end, and the allowance was scantier than 
ever. It was a favourite saying among the genera- 
tion of military men, who in Europe kept unwilling 
holiday between the day of Waterloo and the day 
of Alma, that an Englishman fights best when he 
IS full, and an Irishman when he is drunk. And yet 
nowhere in the chronicles of our army does there 
exist the record of doughtier deeds than were done 
in the June of '57 by Englishmen whose daily susten- 
ance was a short gill of flour, and a short handful of 
split peas ; by Irishmen who had no stimulant save 
their own bravery and a rare sip of putrid water. 

Numerous attempts were made by friends without 
to mend the fare of the garrison, which were for the 
most part defeated by the vigilance of the sepoys. 
A baker of the town, who had been footman in 
an Anglo-Indian family, was detected smuggling a 
basket of bread into the intrenchment. The culprit 
perhaps fondly imagined that Azimoolah would have 
had mercy upon him in consideration of their com- 
mon antecedents; but, if he entertained such an 
expectation, he was doomed to disappointment. 
Much credit is due to Zuhooree, an official in the 
Department of Abkaree, a mysterious branch of the 
Revenue, the periodical occurrence of which in the 
Indian budget has vexed the souls of a succession of 
English financiers. This person put himself into 
communication with Major Larkins of the Artillery, 



128 CAWNPORE chap. 

and sent into the fortification, as opportunity served, 
most acceptable parcels of bread and eggs, with 
occasional bottles of milk and liquid butter. At 
length, on the night of the fourteenth of June, 
fifteen of his emissaries, among whom were two 
women, were caught as they endeavoured to glide 
through the cordon of sentries under cover of the 
flurry and consternation of our sortie. They were 
all blown from guns, but not before the captors had 
elicited from them the name of their employer. It 
was high time for Zuhooree to look to his safety. 
Already his family had been imprisoned and mal- 
treated on an unfounded charge of Christianity, and 
the rebel camp was a dangerous stage on which to 
play the part of good Obadiah. He accordingly left 
by stealth for Allahabad, bearing with him a letter 
of commendation from Major Larkins, attested by a 
gold ring set with five diamonds, which belonged to 
the wife of that officer. 

Our people did what they could to help them- 
selves. A fat bull, sacred to Brahma, finding 
nothing to eat in the streets, inasmuch as the corn- 
dealers had closed their booths for fear of the 
sepoys, came grazing along the plain until he 
arrived within range of our profane rifles. To shoot 
down this pampered monster, the fakeer of the 
animal world,* was no considerable feat for marks- 

^ * These Brahminee bulls are the standing nuisance of Indian 
city life. They saunter along the public way, laying the shops 
under contribution, frightening the women, and disgusting the 
equestrians. To strike them is a higli crime, social and re- 
ligious. ^ To kill them involves present death, and future 
damnation. At every turn may be seen some old fellow with 
a platterful of grain in his hand, alluring one of these creatures 



Ill THE SIEGE 129 

men who could hit a black buck running at a distance 
of a hundred and fifty paces. The difficulty con- 
sisted in the retrieving of the game, which lay full 
three hundred yards from our rampart, on a plain 
swept by the fire of the insurgents. Inside our 
place, however, courage was more plentiful than 
beef; and eight or ten volunteers professed them- 
selves ready to follow Captain Moore, who was first 
at any feast which partook of the nature of a fray. 
The party provided themselves with a stout rope, 
which they fastened round thS legs and horns of 
the beast, and dragged home their prize amidst 
a storm of cheers and bullets, alive but not un- 
scathed. 

In the banquet which ensued the defenders of the 
outposts had no part. On the other hand, they 
sometimes enjoyed luxuries of their own. A pariah 
dog, seduced by blandishments never before lavished 
upon one of his despised race, was tempted within 
the walls and thence into the camp-kettle of Barrack 
Number Two. Towards that building, as towards the 
lion's den in the fable, pointed the footsteps of every 
kind of quadruped, and from it none. An aged 
horse, whose younger days had been spent in the 
ranks of the Irregular Cavalry, was killed, roasted, 
and eaten up in two meals by the combined pickets. 

away from his store. The authorities of Calcutta at length 
took courage, collected all the Brahmin bulls, and put them in 
the carts of the Government scavengers. When Scindiah paid 
his last visit to the capital, he was much scandalized at so 
impious a regulation, and expressed his desire to buy up the 
animals, and restore them to their former condition of life. 
But he wisely refrained, when it was represented to him that, 
the moment his back was turned, the bulls would again find 
their way into the public service. 

K 



130 CAWNPORE chap. 

The head was converted into soup, and sent into 
the intrenchment for the use of some favoured ladies ; 
no explanations being offered or demanded concern- 
ing the nature of the stock. Captain Halliday, of 
the Fifty-ninth Native Infantry, who had come 
across on a morning visit, begged a portion for his 
poor wife, who was lying in the hospital, sick unto 
death of the small-pox. On his way back, walking, 
it may be, too slowly for security through dread of 
spilling one precious drop, he fell never to rise 
again. In the midst of every action and every 
movement, during the hours of labour and the 
minutes of refreshment, unlocked for and unavoid- 
able the mortal stroke descended. 

For by day and night the fire never ceased ; the 
round-shot crashed and spun through the windows, 
raked the earthwork, and skipped about the open 
ground in every corner of our position. The bullets 
cut the air, and pattered on the wall like hail. The 
gxeat shells rolled hissing along the floors and down 
the trenches, and, bursting, spread around them a 
circle of wrack, and mutilation, and promiscuous 
destruction. In their blind and merciless career 
those iron messengers spared neither old nor young, 
nor combatants nor sufferers, but flew ever onwards, 
inflicting superfluous wounds and unavailing de- 
struction. A single bomb killed and maimed seven 
married women, who were seated in the ditch ; 
killed Jacobi, a watchmaker, namesake of the in- 
trepid coachwright; killed too the cashiered officer 
whose drunken freak had done something to accele- 
rate the outbreak. There were those who endured 
in one day a double or a treble bereavement ; while 



m THE SIEGE 131 

in some families none remained to mourn. Colonel 
Williams died of apoplexy, and his wife, disfigm^ed 
and tortured by a frightful hurt in the face, would 
fain have rejoined her husband. On the fifteenth 
of June Miss Mary Williams was stunned by a fall 
of the ceiling, and expired in the arms of a 
wounded sister, unconscious of her loving care. 
Two daughters survived — for a while. Mistress 
White was walking with a twin child at either 
shoulder, and her good man, a private of the Thirty- 
second, by her side. The same ball slew the father, 
broke both elbows of the mother, and severely 
injured one of the orphans. Captain Reynolds lost 
an arm and his life by a cannon-shot, and Mrs. 
Reynolds, whose wrist had been pierced by a musket- 
ball, sank under fever and sorrow. A half-caste 
tradesman and his daughter, crouching behind an 
empty barrel, too late and together discovered that 
their shelter was inadequate. A son of Sir Hugh 
was reclining on a sofa, faint with recent loss of 
blood — one sister at his feet, and another, with both 
his parents, busied about his wants in different parts 
of the room — when an uninvited and a fatal o-uest 
entered the doorway, and left the lad a headless 
corpse. No less than three subalterns attached to 
the same regiment as young Wheeler lost their heads 
within the Redan. Lieutenant Jervis of the En- 
gineers was walking to his battery through a shower 
of lead, with a gait of calm grandeur, as if he were 
pacing the Eden Garden beneath the eye-glasses of 
Calcutta beauty. In vain his comrades raised their 
wonted shout of " Run, Jervis ! run ! " He never 
returned to head-quarters. He never I'eached his 



132 CAWNPORE chap. 

post. A grape-shot passed through the body of Mr. 
Heberden, as he was handing some water to a lady. 
This ofentleman, the most undaunted and unaffected 
of the brave and simple men of science employed 
upon the East Indian Railroad, lay on his face for 
a whole week without a murmur or a sigh, but not, 
we may well believe, without a tacit prayer for 
the relief which came at last. Mr. Hillersdon, the 
magistrate of the station, was dashed in pieces by 
a twenty-four-pound ball, while talking in the 
verandah to his wife, weak from an unseasonable 
confinement. A few days elapsed, and a shot, less 
cruel than some, displaced an avalanche of bricks 
which put an end to her short widowhood. But 
poverty of language does not permit to continue the 
list of horrors. In such a catalogue the sjmonyms 
of death are soon exhausted, and give place to a 
grim tautology. 

" The frequency of our casualties," writes Captain 
Thomson, " may be understood by the history of one 
"hour. Lieutenant Prole had come to the main- 
" guard to see Armstrong, the Adjutant of the Fifty- 
" third Native Infantry, who was unwell. While 
" engaged in conversation with the invalid. Prole 
" was struck by a musket-ball in the thigh, and fell 
"to the ground. I put his arm upon my shoulder, 
" and holding him round the waist, endeavoured to 
" hobble across the open to the barrack, in order that 
" he might obtain the attention of the surgeons there. 
" While thus employed a ball hit me under the right 
" shoulder-blade, and we fell to the ground together, 
" and were picked up by some privates, who dragged 
"us both back to the main-guard. While I was 



Ill THE SIEGE 133 

" lying on the ground, wofully sick from the wound, 
" Gilbert Bax, of the Forty-eighth Native Infantry, 
" came to condole with me, when a bullet pierced 
" his shoulder-blade, causing a wound from which he 
" died before the termination of the siege." 

The youngest were the least to be pitied. In such 
a plight, ignorance of happier days was indeed bliss : 
— ignorance that there was a fair world without, 
where people laughed merrily, and slept soundly, and 
lived in the anticipations of enjoyment, not in the 
terrors of death. To the small children the present 
was very weary; but, reasoning in their way, they con- 
cluded that that present could not last much longer. 
It must come to an end like the tiresome journey 
up the great river, when the barge stuck fast in the 
mud, and mamma cried, and papa called the boatman 
by that Hindostanee name which they themselves 
were always whipped for using. The restraint of 
our protracted incarceration was to them intolerably 
irksome. There was neither milk, nor pudding, nor 
jam, nor mangoes, nor any one to sing to them, or 
listen to their romances, and their wishes, and their 
grievances. The gentleman who once was most kind 
to them would now come home from shooting all 
black, and grimy, and with a rough beard, and would 
stand at the table and eat quickly, and then run out 
again without taking any notice of them : and some 
day or other he would be carried in on a shutter, 
looking so pale and weak : or some day, perhaps, 
he never came back at all. When they asked a 
lady to scold the servants for getting them such 
a nasty breakfast, she only kissed them, and sobbed. 
They sorely missed the fond and patient bearer, that 



134 CAWNPOEE chap. 

willing playmate and much-enduring slave, whom 
Mrs. Sherwood's charming tale has rendered a 
household word in English school-rooms. Left to 
their own discretions, the poor little creatures, un- 
conscious of danger, would toddle out of the crowded 
barrack, and betake themselves to some primitive 
game which demanded no very elaborate provision of 
toys. What was it to them that every half-minute 
a big black ball came ho^Dping along amidst puffs 
of dust, or that little things which they could not 
see flew about humming louder than cockchafers 
or bumble bees? With unexampled barbarity the 
sepoy sharpshooters forbore to respect these innocent 
groups. The peril, which some incurred through 
inexperience, was sought by others under the pres- 
sure of despondency. One unhappy woman, unable 
to support the burden of her existence, ran out from 
the shelter of the walls leading in each hand a child, 
and Avas dragged back, despite of herself, by a 
private soldier, who freely risked his life to preserve 
that which she was bent on losing. Not a few 
native domestics refused to desert their employers. 
Over-worked and imder-thanked, with short com- 
mons, and, if captured by the mutineers, a shorter 
shrift, they stayed on, not for the sake of their 
pittance of wages, but actuated solely by the ties 
of duty, gratitude, and attachment. Most of them 
were soon dismissed from service, for no fault, and 
with no warning. Three were killed by the explo- 
sion of a shell. Another was shot through the head 
as he was hurrying to the outposts intent upon 
serving his master's dinner before it had time to 
cool. An ayah, while dandling an infant, lost both 



Ill THE SIEGE 135 

her legs by the blow of a cannon-bail. That was in 
truth a dismal nursery. 

Want of water was a constant and growing evil. 
At the best, a single well would have furnished a 
pitiably insufficient supply for a thousand mouths 
during an Indian June : and that well was from the 
first the favourite target of the hostile artillerymen. 
Guns were trained on to the exact spot ; so that the 
appearance of a man with a pitcher by day, and by 
night the creaking of the tackle, was the signal for a 
shower of grape. The framework of beam and brick 
which protected the drawers was soon shot away. 
The machinery went next, and the buckets were 
thenceforward hauled up hand over hand from a 
depth of more than sixty feet. The Hindoo water- 
carriers were slain early in the siege, and their place 
was supplied by English soldiers, who nominally 
were paid at the rate of half a sovereign for every 
pail : though the brave fellows knew that, when a 
few days had gone by, it would matter little in whose 
hands the silver might happen to lie. That water 
was purchased with blood and not with money. 
John Mackillop, of the Civil Service, veiling devo- 
tion under a jocose pretence of self-depreciation, 
told his friends that, though no fighting-man, he was 
willing to make himself useful where he could, and 
accordingly claimed to be appointed Captain of the 
Well. His tenure of the office was prolonged be- 
yond his own expectation. It was not till a week 
had passed that he was laid dying on a bed in the 
liospital with a grape-shot in the groin. His last 
words expressed a desire that the lady to whom he 
had promised a drink should not be disappointed. 



136 CAWNPORE chajp. 

For some days a few gallons were procured at a 
frightful hazard from a tank situated on the south- 
east of the intrenchment. Those who were conscious 
how dear a price was paid for every draught, thirsted 
in silence ; but the babies kept up a perpetual moan 
more terrible to some stout souls than a ten minutes' 
hobble across the plain, a heavy skinful of water 
round the loins, and an ounce of lead in the ankle. 
Captain Thomson saw the children of his brother 
officers "sucking the pieces of old water-bags, 
" putting scraps of canvas and leather straps into 
" the mouth to try and get a single drop of moisture 
" upon their parched lips." The distress of our 
countrymen was enhanced by the plague of dust 
to which Cawnpore is subject on account of the 
character of the soil. A traveller who visited the 
station ten or twelve years before the mutiny, com- 
plains that he got no gratification out of a gTand 
review from which he had promised himself much 
pleasure, because the show was throughout enveloped 
in clouds which totally concealed it from his eyes. 

There was yet another well, which yielded nothing 
then : which will yield nothing till the sea, too, 
gives up her dead. It lay two hundred yards from 
the rampart, beneath the walls of the unfinished 
barracks. Thither at an hour varied nightly, for 
fear lest the rebel shot should swell the funeral, 
with stealthy step and scant attendance the slain of 
the previous day were borne. When morning broke 
the battle raged around that sej^ulchre. Overhead 
the cannon roared, and men charged to and fro. 
But those below rested none the less jjeacefully ; 
their last cartridge bitten ; their last achievement 



Ill 



THE SIEGE 137 



performed ; tlieir last pang of hunger and affliction 
undergone and already forgotten. There were de- 
posited, within the space of three weeks, two hun- 
dred and fifty English people, a fourth by tale of the 
whole garrison. As in a season of trouble and law- 
lessness men bury away their jewels and their gold 
against the return of tranquillity and order : so the 
survivors committed to the faithful mould their dear 
treasures, trusting that time and the fortune of war 
would enable our country to honour her lost ones 
with a more solemn rite, and worthier tomb. Brief 
was the service whispered on the brink of that sad 
well in the sultry summer night. It was much, when 
they came to the grave, while the corpse was being 
made ready to be laid into the earth, if the priest 
then said : " In the midst of life we are in death. 
" Of whom may we seek for succour, but of Thee, 
" Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased ? " 

" Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most 
" mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver 
" us not into the bitter pains of eternal death." 

And again, while the earth was being cast upon 
the body by some standing by, the priest might with 
the assent of all declare that it was of His great 
mercy that it had pleased Almighty God to take 
unto Himself the soul of the dear brother there 
departed. 

Throughout the siege jDublic worship, at stated 
hours, and of prescribed length and form, neither 
did nor could take place : but the spirit and the 
essential power of religion were not wanting. The 
station chaplain, Mr. Moncrieff, made it his concern 
that no one should die or suffer without the con- 



138 CAWNPOEE chap. 

solations of Christianity. And whenever he could 
be spared from the hospital, this shepherd of a 
pest-stricken flock, he would go the round of the 
batteries, and read a few Prayers and Psalms to the 
fighting-folk. With heads bent, and hands folded 
over the muzzles of their rifles; soothed, some by 
genuine piety, some by the associations of gladsome 
Christmas mornings and drowsy Sunday afternoons 
spent in the aisle of their village church; they 
listened calmly to the familiar words, those melan- 
choly and resolute men. Each congregation was 
more thin than the last. There were always pre- 
sent some two or three to whom never again would 
grace be given to join with accord in the common 
supplication. The people of Cawnpore might say 
in the language used in a like strait by a brave 
and God-fearing soldier, the Greatheart of English 
History : — 

" Indeed we are at this time a very crazy company ; 
" yet we live in His sight, and shall work the time 
" that is appointed us, and shall rest after that in 
" peace." 

The condition of the besieged presented a com- 
plete contrast to the state of things on the other 
side of the wall. The numbers and the hopes of the 
insurgents'mounted daily. Every morning some new 
Rajah or Nawab paraded through the suburbs in his 
palanquin bright with silver poles and silken hang- 
ings, preceded by drums, and standards, and led 
chargers, and followed by a stream of lances and 
matchlocks. Every evening a fresh erujDtion of 
scoundrelism surged up from the narrow crooked 
alleys and foul bazaars of the black city. Nor were 



Ill THE SIEGE 139 

the Hindoos and Mohammedans of the revolted bat- 
tahons left without the satisfaction and encourage- 
ment of learning what great deeds had been wrought 
elsewhere by the champions of the united faiths. In 
the month of June the following document found its 
way from Delhi to Cawnpore : — 

" To all Hindoos and Miissulnmns, Citizens and 
"Servants of Rindostan, the Officers of the Army 
" now at Delhi and Meerut se7id Greeting. 

" It is well known that in these days all the Eng- 
"lish have entertained these evil designs — first to 
" destroy the religion of the whole Hindostanee army, 
" and then to make the people Christians by com- 
" pulsion. Therefore we, solely on account of our 
" religion, have combined with the people, and have 
" not spared alive one infidel, and have re-established 
" the Delhi dynasty on these terms, and thus act in 
" obedience to orders and receive double pay. Hun- 
" dreds of ouns and a large amount of treasure have 
" fallen into our hands ; therefore it is fitting that 
" whoever of the soldiers and the people dislike 
" turnins- Christians should unite with one heart and 
" act courageously, not leaving the seed of these 
" infidels remaining. For any quantity of supplies 
"delivered to the army the owners are to take 
" the receipts of the officers ; and they will receive 
" double payment from the Imperial Government. 
" Whoever shall in these times exhibit cowardice, or 
" credulously believe the promises of those impos- 
" tors, the English, shall very shortly be put to 
"shame for such a deed; and, rubbing the hands 



140 CAWNPORE chap. 

" of sorrow, sliall receive for their fidelity the reward 
" the ruler of Luckuow got. It is further necessary 
"that all Hindoos and Mussulmans unite in this 
"struggle, and, following the instructions of some 
" respectable people, keep themselves secure, so that 
" good order may be maintained, the poorer classes 
" kept contented, and they themselves be exalted to 
"rank and dignity; also, that all, so far as it is 
" possible, copy this j^i'oclamation, and despatch it 
" everywhere, so that all true Hindoos and Mussul- 
" mans may be alive and watchful, and fix it in some 
" conspicuous place (but prudently, to avoid detec- 
" tion), and strike a blow with a sword before giving 
" circulation to it. The first pay of the soldiers of 
" Delhi will be thirty rupees per month for a trooper, 
" and ten rupees for a foot-man. Nearly one hundred 
" thousand men are ready ; and there are thirteen 
" flags of the Eno^lish regiments, and about fourteen 
" standards from different j)arts now raised aloft for 
" our religion, for God, and the conqueror ; and it is 
"the intention of Cawnpore to root out the seed of 
"the Devil. This is what we of the army here 
" wish." 

This message was succeeded by a jjroclamation 
issued from the peacock throne, in which the Mogul 
promised a monthly wage of twelve ru]3ees and a 
respectable estate to every sepoy who would rally 
to the banner of the ancient dynasty. He likewise 
ordained that no cows should thenceforward be killed 
throughout the land, and finished by denouncing a 
malediction ujDon the head of any one who should 
intercept the imperial courier. The wretch was 



Ill THE SIEGE 141 

doomed to eat pork and beef: and, as the mes- 
senger was eventually hanged by an officer of the 
Seventieth Infantry, it may be presumed that the 
curse has by this time been fulfilled to the letter. 

The rebel cause was soon strengthened by a more 
valuable reinforcement than either the 2^osse comi- 
tahcs of the province, or the sympathy of the Delhi 
mutineers. At the village of Chowbeypore, on the 
Great North Road, had been stationed a detachment 
from the garrison of Lucknow, comprising a squadron 
of native cavalry, and two companies of sepoys, com- 
manded by Captain Staples, four subalterns, and a 
European sergeant-major. At about two o'clock on 
the afternoon of Tuesday, the ninth of June, these 
gentlemen were roused from their luncheon by the 
sound of a bugle playing the " Assembly." Rush- 
ing forth, they demanded why so strange a liberty 
had been taken, and were told that it was by the 
orders of the Nana. At the mention of this ill- 
omened name our officers flung themselves on 
horseback, and rode for dear life, with all the dis- 
advantages resulting from ignorance of the country, 
and a bad start. That was a run in which the game 
was allowed no law. The Captain was shot down 
from his saddle, and cut in pieces where he lay. 
Two Englishmen took to the water like hunted 
stags, and there miserably perished. Two others 
were headed by a mob of villagers, and driven back 
among the sabres and pistols of their pursuers. 
Lieutenant Bolton alone, by dint of hard riding, 
escaped to Cawnpore with a bullet-hole in his cheek, 
if escape it may be called, which was only the post- 
ponement of death. After a chase of sixteen miles he 



142 OAWNPOKE chap. 

reached the neighbourhood of the town at nightfall ; 
passed unobserved through the lines of the muti- 
neers ; and camped out on the plain, waiting until 
dawn should disclose to him the outline of the 
intrenchment. Our sentries, astonished by the ap- 
parition of a cavalier riding at the earthwork through 
the twilight like a mounted Remus, fired, and struck 
his horse. No one, however, was surprised to find 
that even a crippled steed could clear those defences 
at a leap. The fugitive was heartily greeted by his 
countrymen, and entertained with such hospitality 
as their situation would admit. Wounded and ex- 
hausted as he was, he proved well worth his 
keep. 

The troops who had revolted at Chowbeypore 
marched into Cawnpore, bringing with them three 
English heads in a basket, and taking up on their 
way a toll-keeper named Josej)h Carter, and his 
wife ; a young person, who was daily exj)ecting her 
first baby. This offering, combined agreeably to his 
taste of the dead and the living, was mightily ac- 
ceptable to the Nana. With fraternal kindness he 
made a present of the grisly trophies to Bala Rao, 
who exposed them in his saloon, and gave a sort of 
conversazione at which they formed the leading at- 
traction. Mr. Carter was shot, as a matter of course, 
and his little widow would have shared his fate, had 
not the relicts of the late Peishwa, the stepmothers 
by adoption of the Maharaja, felt a womanly com- 
miseration for one so tender and so afilicted. The 
good ladies begged hard for this single example of 
clemency, and begged in vain. At length their pride 
of sex was aroused against such determined brutality 



Ill THE SIEGE 143 

towards a woman who had so lately been a wife, and 
was so soon to be a mother, and thej threatened to 
commit suicide unless their i3etition was granted. 
The Nana then gave way, and permitted his rela- 
tions to carry off their iwoUg^e to the apartments 
appropriated to the females in the palace at Bithoor, 
where they placed her under the charge of an expe- 
rienced Mohammedan nurse. He insisted, however, 
that she should be considered as under custody, 
and appointed a squad of troopers to see that she 
was forthcoming whenever it might suit his will and 
pleasure. He never lost sight of a victim. He 
boasted the worst half of, at any rate, one kingly 
quality — an unerring memory. 

On next Friday the remnant of the native force 
which had mutinied at Benares made their appear- 
ance on the opposite side of the river. The exit of 
these gentlemen from the Holy City had not been of 
a nature to gratify their conceit, and their entry into 
Cawnpore was the reverse of triumphant. They 
straggled up, jaded and dispirited, without any 
semblance of martial order, some on horseback, and 
others perched up in the uncomfortable countrj^- 
carts of Hindostan, which seemed to have been de- 
vised with the express object of conveying the least 
possible amount of freight with the greatest expen- 
diture of traction power. Their condition excited 
the contempt and cupidity of the officials appointed 
to superintend the river traffic in the interest of the 
Nana ; who accordingly refused to ferry across these 
shabby auxiHaries for less than a rupee per head. 
Considering that the majority of the passengers were 
of pure Sikh blood, their spirit must indeed have 



144 CAWNPORE chap. 

been broken before they could have endured such 
insolence and extortion. 

On the fifteenth of June, a welcome message was 
brought to the Maharaja from the Meer Nawab, a 
Mussulman of rank, who sent word that he was 
coming up from the eastward with a couple of thou- 
sand regular infantry, and a full complement of 
artillery. Azimoolah resolved that his subordinates 
should not have an opportunity of repeating their 
conduct of the previous week. Every mark of re- 
spect was to be displayed towards so august and 
puissant a chieftain. The bridge contractors were 
commissioned to collect barges for the transit of the 
expected allies, and the confectioners of the town 
received instructions to prepare for their refreshment 
a memo, containing all those dishes of sweetened 
animal food so nauseous to a European palate. On 
the morrow the Nawab arrived at the head of two 
fine regiments, which had been raised on the occa-. 
sion of Lord Dalhousie's annexation, amidst the 
deep but suppressed uneasiness of all who gave the 
native mind credit for the human qualities of am- 
bition, shame, and patriotism; of all who believed 
the Hindoo capable of any loftier sentiment than 
the desire to curry favour with an English magis- 
trate, touch a hundred rupees per mensem from an 
English treasury, talk broken Addison, and read the 
Deserted Village in the original. On the rolls of 
our army these battalions were styled the Fourth 
and Fifth Oude Locals : but sepoys have invariably 
some pet title for their own corps, in most cases a 
corruption of the name of its first colonel, more 
suited to the Indian tongue than our complicated 



Ill ITHE SIEGE 146 

military nomenclature. Thus the First, the Fifty- 
third, and the Fifty-sixth Bengal Native Infantry, 
were spoken of familiarly as " Gillises," " Lam- 
boom's," and " Garsteen's." The Oude soldiers 
under the Meer Nawab were known to themselves 
and their compatriots as the men of the Nadiree 
and the Akhtaree Regiments. 

When the new-comers caught sight of the fortress 
which had hitherto baffled the ingenuity and courage 
of their associates, they exjDressed no small contempt 
for the generalship of the Nana, but bade him 
be at his ease, for that they would engage to put 
him in possession of the intrenchment after they 
had enjoyed a day's rest and surfeit. And so, on 
the eighteenth of June, at the hour when, exactly 
two and forty years before, the French tirailleurs 
were swarming through the woods of Hougoumont 
up to the loopholes of the wall which they never 
passed, the Oude mutineers charged in a mass 
across the plain, and over our rampart ; bore down 
the defenders ; overturned a gun ; and seemed for 
a moment in a fair way of justifying their vaunt. 
A moment only : for, without waiting for orders, 
angry Sahibs came running from all sides to the 
rescue. Our people slewed round a nine-pounder; 
gave them first some stockingfuls of grape, and 
then an English rush; and sent them back to their 
master fewer and wiser than they came. 

The rebel position presented an aspect animating 
and picturesque in a high degi'ee. To the north 
of our fortification, between the Racket Court and 
the Chapel of Ease, was planted a battery well 
armed with mortars and twenty-foux-pounder cannon. 

L 



146 CAWNPOUE chap. 

In this region the command was taken by the 
Nunhey Nawab, the Mohammedan grandee, who, 
with Bakur AH, and others, had been plundered and 
imprisoned by the Brahmins during their first out- 
break of rehgious spite. The high-spirited Moslem 
soldiery at once refused to brook this outrage, and 
began to talk of setting up the Nawab's claim to 
royalty against that of the Maharaja : upon which 
the latter released his prisoners, and thenceforward 
behaved towards them rather as an equal than as 
a master. The Nana s rival showed both judgment 
and vigour. He beat up all the pensioned veterans 
of the neighbourhood who had formerly served in 
the artillery, and employed work-people of both 
sexes in keeping him supplied with red-hot shot. On 
one occasion an apprentice to the trade took it 
into his head to try the experiment of heating a 
loaded shell, and succeeded in blowing up a woman 
and five men, including, we may presume, himself. 
The Nawab passed most of his time in the gallery 
of the Racket Court, where, in the late afternoon 
of more quiet days, had lolled a cluster of chatty 
Englishmen; opening bottles of soda-water; chaffing 
the players with the threadbare raillery that suffices 
for the simple taste of a limited community; de- 
scending in parties of four, cheroot in mouth, when 
the cry of " game-ball all " warned them that their 
turn was come. Occasionally he would issue forth 
to see how his gunners were getting on, and to 
watch the effect of their practice through a tele- 
scope. A half-caste Christian, who had disguised 
himself as a Mohammedan with admirable skill, gives 
an interesting account of what passed in this quarter. 



Ill THE SIEGE 147 

He says, " I saw Nunliey Nawab coming to the 
"batteries accompanied by a number of troopers, 
'' and sepoys, and his own attendants also ; and 
" I was told by the people that the Nawab had 
"received a post of great dignity, and was in 
" command of a battery. About one o'clock I came 
" close to Major-general Wheeler s bungalow, and, 
" finding a piece of mat in the compound, lay down 
" on it, and saw several troopers going about, 
" forcing people to carry water to the batteries. 
" Hearing an uproar I rose from the place where 
" I was, when a trooper, seeing me, told me that it 
" was a great shame for a young Mussulman like me 
" to be thus idling away my time, and that I should 
"assist at the batteries. He also told me that 
"a young man, the son of Kurrum Ali, the one- 
" eyed, a pensioned soubahdar, was sent for by the 
" Nawab, and had laid a gun so precisely that the 
" shot carried away a portion of one of the barracks 
"within the intrenchment, for which he received 
" a reward of ninety rupees, and a shawl. I replied 
" to this that I possessed no arms, and had never 
" been a soldier." It was no wonder that a battery 
where the service was conducted on so open-handed 
a system soon became the popular resort. The 
lovely Azeezun made this spot her head-quarters. 
She appears to have exercised a strange fascination 
over our good friend Nanukchund, so frequently 
does she appear in the course of his narrative. 
Whether he cherished towards her a sneaking kind- 
ness, or a grudge for some past incivility, or, as 
is most probable, both the one and the other, he 
certainly never leaves her alone for many pages 



148 CAWNPORE chap. 

together. In his quamt way he writes : — " It shows 
" great daring in Azeezun, that she is always armed 
" and present in the batteries, owing to her attach- 
" ment to the cavahy ; and she takes her favourites 
" among them aside, and entertains them with milk, 
" &c., on the public road." 

The Meer Nawab planted the cannon, which 
he had brought with him across the river, on the 
south-east of our position, near the Artillery Mess 
House. This manoeuvre forthwith debarred the 
garrison from obtaining occasional and perilous 
access to the tank; a privation the more severely 
felt, because the Oude men, bent on avenging their 
repulse, worked their pieces with a will, and kept 
up at point-blank range so hot a lire upon the 
mouth of our well that the drawing of water was 
a deed of heroism by night, and in daylight an 
act of insanity. In the west, Bakur Ali, Avho had 
shared with the Nunhey Nawab his disgrace and 
his restoration to favour, bombarded our outposts 
from among the stables of the Second Cavalry ; while 
in and about the lines of the First Native Infantry 
stood a number of heavy guns, known by the col- 
lective apj)ellation of "the Sepoy Battery," under 
cover of which a Jemmadar, who fancied himself 
gifted with a turn for engineering, was sinking a 
mine by the aid of some invalid sappers and miners, 
whom he had persuaded to place themselves at 
his disposal. In the south-west direction was a 
stately mansion, which formerly held rank as a 
charitable institution, under the title of the " Sal- 
vador," a name which the effeminate articulation of 
the native had long before this converted into the 



m THE SIEGE 149 

" Savada." As the Mohammedan faction mustered 
strong in the vicinity of the Racket Court, so the 
Savada soon became the centre of Hindoo influence. 
It was the special haunt of the Nana. Here were 
his ministers, his diviners, his courtiers, and the 
prisoners from whom he purposed to extort some- 
thing besides their breath. Here was the battery 
which went by his name. Here was the tent of 
his most able and ardent partisan, Teeka Sing, 
the generalissimo. Here, too, in an agreeable corner 
of the grounds, under the shade of a conspicuous 
grove, conveniently remote alike from the camp 
of the Moslem and the muzzles of the English 
artillery, was pitched his own pavilion ; for he seems 
to have inherited the Mahratta preference for canvas 
over brick and mortar. The chiefs of that hardy 
and unquiet race seldom had a tight roof over their 
heads until they were laid beneath some mausoleum 
of fair white marble, sparkling with cornelian and 
jasper and lapis lazuli, constructed out of the spoils 
and the tribute of nations. 

The mutineers showed every intention of enjoying 
their spell of liberty and domination. These revolted 
regiments were rapidly turning into mobs. The work 
of the batteries was left to the retainers of ambitious 
Rajahs ; to pensioned gunners ; and to such amateurs 
as had a stomach for fighting, and a taste for the 
shawls and cash lavished by the Nunhey Nawab. 
The sej)oys, meanwhile, lounged in the shops which 
fringed the canal, eating sweetstuff with school-boy 
avidity, and drinking sherbet to their hearts' content ; 
or swaggered along the streets with a nonchalance 
copied from their I'eminiscences of the fashionable 



150 CAM^NPOEE chap. 

frequenters of the band-stand, criticizing the driving 
of those among their comrades who had been for- 
tunate enough to lay their hands upon a buggy 
belonging to a British officer. No decent people 
were to be seen in the public places. No business 
was done in the main thoroughfares. The tradesmen, 
in piteous trepidation, eyed the passing scamps from 
behind their shutters, consoling their enforced idle- 
ness by recollecting in what angle of the garden 
their money was interred, and framing excuses 
against the probable visit of the Nana's tax-collector, 
or the possible return of the English authorities. 
The opium-sellers and the innkeepers, who in these 
days anterior to Mr. Wilson's budget had not attained 
to the dignity of licensed victuallers, alone drove 
a thriving trade. The warriors of the Religions 
smoked, and chewed, and snored supine, clad in 
cotton drawers and a pair of clumsy shoes ; their 
necks encircled by the Brahminical thread, token 
of their privileged and sacred extraction. To this 
costume they superadded a red coat, at such times 
as the stings of conscience, or the reproaches of 
priest and paramour, drove them out to get a lazy 
shot at the infidels and an appetite for their 
curry. 

The earhest care of the Nana had been to set on 
foot a respectable municipal organization. With 
this object in view, he appointed to the chief magis- 
tracy in the city one Hoolass Sing, who may have 
been a traitor, but was, apparently, only a time- 
server. This person was chosen by the advice of a 
deputation composed of the leading townsmen; a 
tent-maker, a jeweller, and a dealer in opiates, 



Ill THE SIEGE 151 

Hoolass Sing had no sinecure. It was only by 
the exercise of judicious firmness, alternating with 
seasonable pliability, that he contrived to protect 
Cawnpore from the rapacity of the soldiery, and 
the wrath of those rural nobles whose paternal acres 
had been sold by the English Government to re- 
cover arrears of land-tax, and purchased by moneyed 
cits, who wished to cut a figure in country society. 
The duty of victualling the troops was committed 
to a blind gentleman of the name of Moolla, who, 
doubtless, saw quite well enough to water the rice 
and omit to sift the meal. A burlesque judicial 
court was formed of Azimoolah, Jwala Pershad, and 
other creatures of the Maharaja ; and presided over 
by Baba Bhut, who delivered his decisions seated 
on a billiard-table in Mr. Duncan's hotel. This 
tribunal passed a variety of sentences without estab- 
lishing any very valuable precedent. Once, in an 
unaccountable fit of morality, it sentenced a luckless 
rogue to lose his hand for theft ; but, for obvious and 
selfish reasons, the judges appear to have refrained 
from again taking cognizance of this crime. A 
Mohammedan butcher was condemned to mutilation 
for having killed a cow ; and certain individuals were 
paraded through the town on donkeys, " for dis- 
reputable livelihood " : a punishment which, when 
the charge was made known, must have excited very 
general sympathy and indignation. Gradually this 
body, like the Committee of Public Safety in the 
French Revolution, assumed to itself a supervision 
over every department of the administration. When 
the powder ran short, the principal dealer in salt- 
petre was thrown into prison, until he produced the 



152 CAWNPOEE chap. 

requisite quantity of that article. A native merchant 
was required to provide cloaks for half a battalion, 
at the rate of two and threepence apiece; a scale 
of payment which must have inspired him with an 
unaffected regret for the liberal contracts of the old 
Company. With a keener relish, Baba Bhut under- 
took to account for the Englishmen who still lurked 
about, watching for an opportunity of slipping away 
to Allahabad or Agra. On the eleventh of June, 
Mr. Williams, a writer in one of the jDublic offices, 
was traced out and slaughtered. Two days sub- 
sequently, the head of young Mr. Duncan was 
brought into his own father's house. The murderer 
was rewarded with the present of a pound, and the 
porter got a couple of rupees. 

At the expiration of a fortnight, an event oc- 
curred which, for a while, afforded to the besieged 
people a more suggestive and agreeable matter of 
conversation than the rise of the mercury in the 
tube, and the sinking of the flour in the barrels. A 
native water-carrier skulked over from the opposite 
lines, and gave out that, on account of his love and 
respect for the Sahibs, he had set his heart upon 
being the first to bring them the good news; that 
there were two companies, of white soldiers on the 
other side of the Ganges, who were supposed to have 
marched down from Lucknow ; that they had guns 
with them, and were making as if they would cross 
the river on the morrow ; that the rebel camp was in 
panic, and that everybody was saying how much he 
had all along intended to do for the Sahibs, had he 
only dared. Next day he turned up again with the 
intelligence that the Europeans had been detained 



Ill THE SIEGE 153 

on the opposite bank by an unexpected flood, but 
that they were busily engaged in knocking together 
rafts, and might be looked for within the forty-eight 
hours. Those hours passed, and twice and thrice 
those hours, and there came not the aspect of help, 
nor the renewal of confidence, nor the welcome sight 
of light faces, nor the welcome sound of approaching 
artillery. The soi-cUsant water-carrier made no third 
appearance. His two first visits had taught him all 
that Azimoolah desired to know of our impoverished 
and defenceless plight. 

Our spies were less lucky ; or it may be that the 
sturdy and straightforward British nature cannot 
promptly adapt itself to those frauds which are 
proverbially fair in war. There was in the garrison 
a soldier named Blenman, an Eurasian by birth, 
astute, and singularly courageous, but in temper 
uncertain, and impatient of control. There, and at 
that time, such a man was worth his weight in 
meal or powder, and his superiors did well to 
humour him. Cool, observant, and bold to temerity, 
the most delicate and hazardous of services had for 
him an innate attraction. After trying his wings 
in some partial flights, he prepared for a great and 
final enterprise, and volunteered to penetrate as far 
as Allahabad with a report of our calamities, and an 
appeal for instant succour. He disguised himself 
as a native cook, an easy task, for his complexion 
showed that he had far more than the due share of 
maternal blood ; and sallied forth with a pistol and 
fifteen rupees stuffed into his cotton drawers. He 
passed unnoticed or unsuspected no less than seven 
horse pickets. The eighth stopped and searched 



154 CAWNPORE chap. 

him, in spite of his asseverations that he was a 
poor leather-dresser, taking a walk through the 
night air, after working all day in a close alley, 
over the saddles and holsters of the gentlemen 
troopers of the Second Cavalry. Too plausible to be 
killed off-hand, and too questionable to be neglected, 
he was strijDped and sent back whence he came, 
with no other information than that the investment 
of our position was even more strict and complete 
than had been apprehended. 

A half-caste Government official offered to make 
an attempt to obtain intelligence, and to bribe over 
some of the influential citizens of Cawnpore, on 
condition that Sir Hugh would permit his family to 
leave the intrenchment. His terms were accepted. 
He set forth, but was at once detected, and taken 
before the Maharaja, who sentenced him to three 
years' imj)risonment with hard labour ; a unique 
example of leniency, curious, as proving how firmly 
that usurper was persuaded that his rule would now 
be permanent. Ghouse Mahomed, a faithful sepoy 
of the Fifty-sixth, succeeded in getting farther than 
his predecessors. He crept along the ground in the 
darkness, until he met two or three men with four 
yoke of oxen taking supplies to the Savada House. 
He told them that he was going to the city to buy 
some grave-clothes for his brother, a brave who had 
died that day for the good cause in one of the 
advanced batteries. He was allowed to proceed 
upon his pious errand; but, when he reached the 
native town, it was as much as he could do to con- 
ceal himself from the inquisition of the rebel police. 
Many emissaries were despatched from our fortifi- 



Ill THE SIEGE 155 

cation, but Blenman alone returned. Tlie others, 
through the months subsequent to our re-occupation 
of the district, came straggHng in, as they could 
effect their escape from the camp of the fugitive 
Nana; with noses slit, and hands or ears chopped 
off by an ignorant and inhuman operator. 

The remaining contents of the Cawnpore budget 
derive their principal interest from a consideration 
of the circumstances under which they were pro- 
duced. Not even at such a season would English- 
men put their deejDer feelings within an envelope ; 
and the gossip of the station in that June was 
hardly calculated to enliven a correspondence. On 
the night of Sunday, the twenty-first, Major Vibart 
transmitted these lines to Lucknow : — 

"We have been cannonaded for six hours a day 
'' by twelve guns. This evening, in three hours, up- 
" wards of thirty shells [mortars] were thrown into 
"the intrenchment. This has occurred daily for the 
" last eight days ; an idea may he formed of oiir 
" casualties, and how little protection the barracks 
" afford to the women. Any aid, to be effective, 
" must be immediate. In event of rain falling, our 
"l30sition would be untenable. 

"According to telegraphic despatches received 
"previous to the outbreak, a thousand Europeans 
" were to have been here on the fourteenth instant. 
" This force may be on its way u]). Any assistance 
"you can send might co-oj)erate with it. Nine- 
" pounder ammunition, chiefly cartridges, is required. 
" Should the above force arrive, we can, in return, 
" insure the safety of Lucknow. Being simply a 



156 CAWNPORE chap. 

"military man, General Wheeler has no power to 
"offer bribes in land and money to the insurgents, 
''nor any means vjJiatever of communicating with 
" them. You can ascertain the best means of cross- 
"ing the river. Nujuffgurh Ghaut is suggested. It 
" is earnestly requested that whatever is done may 
"be effected without a moment's delay. We have 
"lost about a third of our original number. The 
" enemy are strongest in artillery. They appear not 
"to have more than four hundred or five hundred 
"infantr}^ They move their guns with difficulty, 
" by means of unbroken bullocks. The infantry are 
" great cowards, and easily repulsed. 
" By order, 

" G. Y. YlBART, Major." 

In the following letter there is one sad touch : the 
widower writing over his elbow " on the floor," " in 
" the midst of the greatest dirt, noise, and confusion." 

" I was agreeably surprised to receive your most 
" welcome letter of the twenty-first, the messenger 
" of which managed cleverly to find his way here ; 
"but that surprise was exceeded by the astonish- 
" ment felt by us all, at the total want of knowledge 
"you seem to be in regarding our position and 
" prospects ; while we have been, since the sixth of 
"the month, equally in the dark respecting the 
"doings of the world around us. Your loss at 
"Lucknow is frightful, in common with that of us 
" all ; for, since the date referred to, every one here 
"has been reduced to ruin. On that date they 
"commenced their attack, and fearfully have they 



HI THE SIEGE 157 

''continued now for eighteen clays and nights; 
" while the condition of misery experienced by all 
" is utterly beyond description in this place. Death 
" and mutilation, in all their forms of horror, have 
"been daily before us. The numerical amount of 
" casualties has been frightful, caused both by sick- 
" ness and the implements of war, the latter having 
"been fully employed against our devoted garrison 
" by the villainous insurgents, who have, unluckily, 
" been enabled to furnish themselves therewith from 
"the repository which contained them. We await 
" the arrival of succour with the most anxious ex- 
"pectation, after all our endurance and sufferings; 
"for that. Sir Henry Lawrence has been applied 
"to by Sir Hugh, and we hope earnestly it will be 
"afforded, and that immediately, to avert further 
" evil. If he will answer that appeal with ' deux 
''cents soldats Britanniques,' we shall be doubtless 
" at once enabled to improve our position in a vital 
" manner : and vje deserve that the appeal should 
" be so answered forthwith. You will be grieved to 
" learn that among our casualties from sickness, my 
" poor dear wife and infant have been numbered. 
" The former sank on the twelfth, and the latter on 
"the nineteenth. 1 am Avriting this on the floor, 
"and in the midst of the greatest dirt, noise, and 
"confusion. Pray urge our reinforcement to the 
" Chief Commissioner. 

" Yours, 

"L. M. WiGGENS." 

The employment of the French sentence is worthy 
of remark. During these troubled times, every 



158 CAWNPORE chap. 

modern language was pressed into our service, and 
more than one old field-officer mustered up his 
school reminiscences of the Anahasis and the Iliad, 
to compose a bulletin curiously blended of Attic, 
^olic, and Aldershot, which would have puzzled 
Grote or Hermann at least as much as it could 
possibly perplex any mutineer or highwayman who 
might chance to intercept the messenger. 

Things had got to a terrible pass on our side of 
the wall. All the present sweetness of existence 
was long since vanished, and the last flicker of 
future hope had now died away. But, moved by 
a generous despair and an invincible self-respect, 
our people still fought on. By daring and vigilance, 
by countless shifts and unremitting labour, they 
staved off ruin for another day, and yet another. 
At rare intervals behind the earthwork, they stood — 
gaunt and feeble likenesses of men — clutching with 
muffled fingers the barrels of their muskets, which 
glowed with heat intolerable to the naked hand, so 
fierce was the blaze of the summer sun. Straining 
their ears to catch any fancied sounds of distant 
cannonading, they gazed across the plain to where 
the horizon faded into a fantastic mirage, which 
mocked their fevered eyes with fair scenes of forest 
and mountain, and with infinite expanses of glassy 
water broken by golden islets ; while in the fore- 
ground the jackals prowled about the debated space, 
and the pariah dogs snarled at the grey crows, and 
slunk away from the spots where the great vultures 
sat in obscene and sulky conclave. Dim must have 
been the thouofhts, confused the images, which flitted 
through their wearied intellect ; indistinct memories 



Ill THE SIEGE 159 

of home and youth ; faint regrets, and fainter re.so- 
lutions ; fitful yearnings for dear beings whom they 
would never again behold. One would surmise 
how his mother in far-off England would bear her 
sorrow, and who would be selected to break the 
news. Another would calculate dates, and try to 
convince himself that his boy at Rugby should have 
got the scholarship examination off his mind before 
the receipt of the fatal tidings. But, whatever 
might be the subject of contemplation, no smile 
relieved the stolid apathy of their careworn features, 
save when dejection was for an instant charmed 
away by the buoyant audacity of Moore. " He was 
"a strong man. In the dark perils of war, in the 
" high places of the field, hope shone in him like a 
"pillar of fire, when it had gone out in all the 
" others." Brave and vivacious himself, he Avas the 
cause that bravery and vivacity were in other men. 
It was not that he had less at stake than those 
around him, for his wife and children were in the 
intrenchment. When the vicissitudes of battle called 
her husband to the outposts, Mrs. Moore would step 
across with her work, and spend the day beneath a 
little hut of bamboos covered with canvas, which the 
garrison of Barrack Number Two had raised for her 
in their most sheltered corner. Seldom had fair 
lady a less appropriate bower. 

The twenty-third of June 1757 was the date of 
the great rout that placed Bengal beneath the sway 
of the foreigner. In 1857 the ringleaders of the 
mutiny had fixed on the dawning of that day as the 
signal for a general rebellion over the entire north 
of India; but the outbreak at Meerut and the 



160 CAWNPORE chap. 

massacre of Delhi precipitated and weakened the 
blow. In that dread year those aivful events were 
to us as saving mercies. At Cawnpore, however, 
the Nana and his crew, actuated by a partiality for 
the celebration of centenaries not altogether con- 
fined to Asiatics, were bent upon effecting something 
worthy of the occasion. All through the night of 
the twenty-second the defenders of the outlying 
barracks were kept on the alert by sounds which 
betokened that the sepoys in the adjacent build- 
ings were more than usually numerous and restless. 
Lieutenant Thomson sent to head-quarters for a 
reinforcement ; but Moore replied that he could 
spare nobody except himself and Lieutenant Dela- 
fosse. In the course of a few minutes the pair 
arrived, and at once sallied fortli armed, one with 
a sword, and the other with an empty musket. 
Moore shouted out, " Number One to the front ! " 
and the enemy, taking it for gxanted that the 
well-known Avord of command would bring upon 
them a full company of Sahibs with fixed bayonets 
and cocked revolvers, broke cover and ran like 
rabbits. But towards morning they returned in 
force, and attacked Avith such determined ferocity 
that there remained more dead Hindoos outside the 
doorAvay than there were living Europeans within. 
At the same moment the main fortification Avas 
assaulted by the whole strength of the insurrection. 
Field-guns, pulled along by horses and bullocks, 
were brought up within a few hundred yards, 
unlimbered, and pointed at our wall. The troopers, 
who had bound themselves by the most solemn oath 
of their religion to conquer or to perish, charged at 



Ill THE SIEGE 161 

a gallop in one quarter, while in another advanced 
the dense array of infantry, preceded by a host of 
skirmishers, who rolled before them great bundles 
of cotton, proof against our bullets. It was all in 
vain. Our countrymen, too, had their anniversary 
to keep. They shot down the teams which tugged 
the artillery. They fired the bales, drove the 
sharpshooters back upon the columns, and sent 
the columns to the right-about in unseemly haste. 
They taught the men of the Second Cavalry that 
broken vows, and angered gods, and the waters 
of Ganges poured fruitlessly on the perjured head 
were less terrible than British valour in the last 
extremity. The contest was short but sharp. The 
defeated combatants retired to brag and to carouse ; 
the victors to brood, to sicken, and to starve. That 
evening a party of sepoys drew near our lines, made 
obeisance after their fashion, and requested leave 
to bury the slain. This acknowledgment of an 
empty triumph, which would have spread a lively 
joy throughout the ranks of an old Spartan army, 
even in the most desperate strait, was but a poor 
consolation to these Englishmen under the shadow 
of their impending doom. 



CHAPTER lY 

THE TREACHERY 

ri'^HE event of this conflict produced a sudden 
-L change in the projects of the Nana. He forth- 
with began to despair of carrying our fortress by 
storm, and the circumstances of his position were 
so critical that he dared not await the unfailing 
but tardy process of starvation. The clearing out 
of the intrenchment proved to be a more serious 
undertaking than he had anticipated. From forty 
to fifty score of his stoutest warriors had bitten the 
dust in front of our rampart, and he appeared to 
be as far as ever from the object which he had in 
view. Every day the English fought with increased 
gallantry and firmness, while in his own camp dis- 
affection and disgust gained ground from hour to 
hour. An Oriental army which has turned its back 
on the foe can seldom be induced once more to toe 
the scratch ; and every section of the rebel force had 
by this time been well beaten. The sepoys were 
already grumbling, and it was to be feared that 
another repulse would set them conspiring. Even 
the Oude men preferred the toddy-shops to the 
batteries; and the mutineers of the Cawnpore 
brigade swore that no power in heaven or earth 



CHAP. IV THE TREACHERY 163 

should prevail on them again to look the Sahibs in 
the face. Meanwhile the Mohammedans, whom the 
Maharaja dreaded only less than the British, gathered 
strength and impunity from the popular discontent. 
Teeka Sing, the soul of the Hindoo faction and 
the right hand of the Nana, was imprisoned in 
his tent on the charge of amassing a private treasure 
by a party of Moslem troopers, who were growing 
hungry for the largess so long deferred. Delay 
was perilous, and defeat would be fatal. By fair 
means, or, if need was, by the very foulest, it behoved 
the usurj)er to bring the matter to a speedy termina- 
tion. One method remained ; swifter than famine ; 
more sure than open force. It might be possible 
to cajole where he could not frighten; to ensnare 
those whom he might not vanquish; to lure our 
countrymen from the shelter of that wall within 
which no intruder had set his foot and lived. 

In one of the rooms in the Savada House the 
Greenway family, of whom mention has been made 
above, had now been shut up for about a fortnight, 
in strict confinement, diversified by an occasional 
conversation with an underling of the Maharaja. 
He had fixed their ransom at forty thousand pounds, 
and was at present discussing the terms of a bill 
of exchange on a Calcutta bank, for which they 
were never to receive any consideration. In the 
same apartment lived an elderly person, named Mrs. 
Jacobi, who had been taken while endeavouring 
to escape towards Lucknow, disguised in native 
clothes. On the evening of Tuesday, the twenty- 
third, these unhappy people were surprised at re- 
ceiving a call from Azimoolah and Jwala Pershad, 



164 CAWNPOEE chap. 

who seemed in very low spirits on account of the 
collapse of their centenary. These gentlemen in- 
formed Mrs. Jacobi * that she had been designated 
as the bearer of a message to Sir Hugh Wheeler. 
She readily undertook the office, and in the course 
of the next day was favoured by an interview with 
the Nana, who gave her a letter and her instructions. 
At nine o'clock on the following morning, she pro- 
ceeded to the intrenchments in a palanquin, and 
was admitted as soon as the sentries had ascertained 
that she was an envoy, and not a spy. She delivered 
the document which had been intrusted to her 
charge; a note in the handwriting of Azimoolah, 
attested by no signature, of which the superscription 
was " To the subjects of Her Most Gracious Majesty 
Queen Victoria ; " and the contents ran as follows, 
in caricature of a proclamation issued from the 
Government House at Calcutta : — 

"All those who are in no way connected with 
"the acts of Lord Dalhousie, and are willing to 
" lay down their arms, shall receive a safe passage 
" to Allahabad." 

This protocol, unique for brevity and impudence, 
was laid before a council, consisting of General 
Wheeler, and Captains Moore and Whiting. The 
debate was prolonged and earnest. Poor Sir Hugh 
could not bear to abandon the position that he 

* On the unimportant point of the identity of the mes- 
senger a strange discrepancy exists between the best informed 
authorities. Captain Thomson "recognized her as Mrs. 
Greenway." On the other hand, the confidential servant of 
Mr. Greenway affirms that the choice of the Nana fell upon 
Mrs. Jacobi, and his statement is supported by the great 
majority of the depositions. 



IV THE TREACHERY 165 

had chosen so ill, and in the defence of which he 
had been so little able to participate. It seemed 
a miserable conclusion of a not discreditable career 
to stipulate with his own sepoys for the liberty of 
slinking away after the loss of all his men and 
half his officers. Such was indeed an exorbitant 
price to pay for the sad remnants of a broken life. 
Better to lie within that well not far above his 
brave boy than to bargain for the privilege of 
being interred a few months later beneath one of 
the unsightly masses of brickwork which encumber 
the European graveyards of India. But the scruples 
of the old man at length yielded to the arguments 
produced by Moore and Whiting — and they were 
no drawing-room soldiers; for the one throughout 
those three weeks had never left a corner on which 
converged the fire of two powerful batteries, and 
the other had so borne himself that it might well 
be doubted whether he knew what fear was. They 
represented that, if the garrison had consisted ex- 
clusively of fighting people, no one would ever 
dream of surrender as long as they had swords 
wherewith to cut their way to Allahabad. But what 
could be done with a mixed multitude, in which 
there was a woman and a child to each man, while 
every other man was incapacitated by wounds and 
disease ? The setting in of the wet weather (so they 
urged), long dreaded as an overwhelming calamity, 
and delayed hitherto by what resembled the special 
mercy of Providence, could not now be distant. 
When the heavens were once opened, when the 
rain of the East descended in all its first violence, 
their fortification would straightway cease to be 



166 CAWNPORE chap. 

habitable and secure. The walls of the barracks, 
shaken and riddled by the cannonade, would sink 
and crumble beneath the fury of a tropical tempest. 
The holes in which our ladies sought refuge from 
the glare and the shot would be filled ere many 
inches had fallen. The marksmen who, provided 
with weapons worthy of their skill, could hardly 
guarantee those paltry bulwarks, would be helpless 
when damp powder and dirty gun-barrels had re- 
duced them to their bayonets and hog-spears. In 
another week they must expect to be washed out 
of their defences ; but, before that week had elapsed, 
the state of the barometer would concern them 
little; for the provisions were fast coming to an 
end. Their stores had dwindled to less than a 
quart per head of almost uneatable native food. 
The choice lay between death and capitulation : 
and, if the latter were resolved on, it was well 
that the offer came from the enemy. Loth and 
late Sir Hugh gave way. In order to avoid the 
appearance of a suspicious eagerness to accept the 
advances of the Nana, Mrs. Jacobi was dismissed 
with an announcement that our commander was in 
deliberation as to the answer that should be sent. 
That the intention to treat was generally known 
among our officers is evident from a note addressed 
by Lieutenant Master, of the Fifty-third, to his father, 
a colonel of cavalry, dated at half-past eight in the 
evening of June the twenty-fifth. 

"We have now held out for twenty-one days 
"under a tremendous fire. The Rajah of Bithoor 
"has offered to forward us in safety to Allahabad, 
" and the General has accepted his terms. I am 



IV THE TREACHERY 167 

''all right, though twice wounded. Charlotte 
"Newnham and Bella Blair are dead. I'll write 
" from Allahabad. God bless you. 

" Your affectionate son, 

"G. A. Master." 

The old lady returned to the rebel lines early 
in the afternoon, but somewhat cheered by her short 
visit. While the summons was under consideration, 
she had made the most of such an excellent oppor- 
tunity for pouring out her troubles and terrors 
to a friendly audience. Her escort conducted her 
to the Maharaja, who listened to what she had 
to say, and then sent her back into captivity. He 
had no further need of her services. A pacific 
intercourse had been established between the camps, 
and thenceforward his ambassadors might traverse 
the intervening ground without apprehension lest 
a conical bullet from Lieutenant Stirling's rifle 
should put an abrupt end to the negotiations. That 
evening there was assembled in the Nana's tent 
a council of war, to which repaired five or six con- 
genial advisers, who, in their inmost hearts, were 
conscious that they had been bidden to a council 
of murder. One hour after dusk was the time 
appointed for that accursed colloquy. A subject 
was to be broached on which few would dare to 
enter until the kindly sun had veiled his face. 
History will never cease to shudder at the deeds 
which thence resulted ; but of the words that there 
were spoken she will be content to abide for ever 
ignorant. 

The morrow was a busy day. The first thing 



168 CAWHPOEE CHAP. 

in the morning, at our invitation, Azimoolah walked 
up to within half a quarter of a mile of our outposts, 
accompanied by Jwala Pershad, a myrmidon of 
Bithoor Palace, who, by zeal and servility, had risen 
to the dignity of a brigadier. To them went forth 
Moore and Whiting, together with Mr. Roche, the 
postmaster. These gentlemen, whom Sir Hugh had 
invested with full powers, undertook to deliver up 
the fortification, the treasure, and the artillery, on 
condition that our force should march out under 
arms, with sixty rounds of ammunition to every 
man ; that carriages should be provided for the 
conveyance of the wounded, the women, and the 
children ; and that boats victualled with a sufficiency 
of flour should be in readiness at the neighbouring 
landing-place. These stipulations appeared to meet 
the approval of the native commissioners ; one of 
whom volunteered the remark, " We will give you 
sheep and goats also." 

The terms were committed to paj)er, and handed 
to Azimoolah, who broke up the conference with 
a promise to do what he could towards persuading 
his master to accede to our proposals. That same 
afternoon a trooper brought back a document, with 
a verbal message ^to the effect that the Nana had 
no alteration to suowst, and desired that the bar- 
rack should be evacuated that very night. This 
extravagant demand produced a remonstrance on 
our part, to which the response was an insolent 
assurance that the Peishwa must have his will, and 
that disobedience or even hesitation would brino- 

o 

upon the delinquents the fire of all his batteries ; 
that he was not so blind as to give us credit for 



IV THE TREACHERY 169 

having abundance of food or serviceable cannon ; 
and that another week's bombardment would leave 
nobody alive to haggle with his behest. To this 
flourish of Oriental vanity Whiting replied in good 
English style, that, if Seereek Dhoondoo Punth 
wanted the intrenchment, he had only to come 
and take it ; that his soldiers knew the way thither 
and the way back again ; and that, if the worst came 
to the worst, there was powder enough in our maga- 
zine to blow into the Ganges everything south of 
the canal. This last allusion closed the controversy. 
The Maharaja consented that we should delay the 
embarkation till morning, and accorded a most gra- 
cious reception to Mr. Todd, who formerly had been 
his English tutor, and who now prevailed upon ,him, 
without difficulty, to sign his worthless name on the 
margin of the treaty. Men give easily what costs 
them nothing. The Nana informed his old acquaint- 
ance that arrangements should be made to enable 
our countrymen to breakfast and dine on board, and 
start comfortably in the cool of the evening. The 
servants, he said, had better stay behind, as ladies 
could look to their own wants on the voyage. Which 
was true, God knows. 

There was much to be done that night. On the 
one side preparations were on foot for a departure ; 
on the other, measures were being taken that the 
departure should never be. Hoolass Sing, the 
magistrate of the city, sent for the piincipal persons 
who gained their living by letting boats on hire, and 
ordered them to provide conveyance for five hundred 
passengers. They declared themselves unable to 
fulfil his injunctions, a refusal on which, after the 



170 CAWNPOEE chap. 

re-establishment of British rule, they insisted as an 
irrefragable proof of loyalty. It is more likely that 
they were influenced by a rational doubt as to 
whether they would ever see the colour of the Nana's 
money. Hoolass Sing, however, knew what he was 
about, as appears from the pathetic language of one 
of the sufferers. " I told him," says Buddhoo, aged 
forty years, "that, when I received orders from the 
" Europeans to procure boats, I was advanced 
" money, and allowed a month or fifteen days to 
" collect the same, and that it was impossible to 
" procure boats on so short a notice. On this he 
'' was much annoyed, and said I was only putting 
" him off, and ordered his attendants to take me, 
" give me a good beating, and make me get boats. 
" They did as ordered, kept me there the whole 
" night, beating me, and threatened to blow me 
" from guns if I did not comply with their request. 
" They continued threatening me till 12 A.M. : but 
" I did not get them any boats." Buddhoo's com- 
panions had more regard for their skins ; and, being 
not unaccustomed to this mode of carrying on a 
commercial transaction, after a due modicum of 
vapulation discovered that they could muster two 
dozen barges between them. These were punted 
down the river, and moored at the appointed spot. 
Presently a committee of English officers, riding 
upon elephants, and guarded by native troopers, 
arrived for the ^Durpose of inspecting the proceedings 
and reporting progress. These gentlemen expressed 
great vexation at the dilapidated state of the little 
fleet. Four hundred workmen were at once engaged, 
and set to repair the thatch of the roofs, and con- 



IV THE TREACHERY 171 

struct a temporary Hooring of bamboo. During the 
presence of our countrymen some provisions were 
brought along and placed on board, with a con- 
siderable show of assiduity : but they were not satis- 
fied with all that they saw, and still less with what 
they seemed to hear. Some sepoys, idling on the 
bank, interspersed their talk with frequent repeti- 
tion of the word " kuttle," which, being interpreted, 
is " massacre." 

And so the stage had been selected whereon to 
enact the tragedy. Hoolass Sing had furnished the 
properties ; Azimoolah had composed the plot ; and 
there lacked only a skilful manager, who should 
distribute the parts, instruct the actors, and dispose 
the supernumeraries. The Nana could discover many 
a one among his pimps and parasites suited to such 
a job as far as moral constitution was concerned. 
In his familiar circle there was no dearth of fellows 
by the hand of nature marked, quoted, and signed 
to do a deed of shame. But in that degenerate 
circle there was only a single courtier who had 
retained something of the old Mahratta dash and 
martial craft. Tantia Topee was destined ere long 
to demonstrate that he could run away every whit as 
successfully as those chieftains who more than half a 
century before wearied out the hot pursuit of Lake 
and Wellesley; and on this particular occasion he 
evinced qualities which might have secured to him a 
share of fame in a cause less detestable to God and 
man. Laurels were not to be reaped in that contest. 
The due meed for such victors was a wreath of 
cypress and a necklace of hemp. But the bad deed 
was right cleverly done. Among all the feats of arms 



172 CAWNPORE chap. 

performed by the rebel forces during the eighteen 
months which succeeded the expfosion of Meerut, 
no operation was so perfect in all its parts, so able 
in design, and so prosperous in execution, as the 
memorable treachery of Cawnpore. 

The Suttee Chowra Ghaut, or landing-place, lay a 
short mile to the north-west of our intrenchments. 
At this point a ravine runs into the Ganges, after 
crossing at a right angle the main road, which is 
distant three hundred yards from the river. During 
summer the bed of the stream is dry, and presents 
the appearance of a sandy lane of irregular width, 
uneven with frequent lumps of broken soil, and 
inclosed on either side with high banks crowned 
by decaying fences. Standing half-way down this 
passage the tourist sees behind him a bridge which 
carries the highway across the defile, the rails of 
which, then as now coated with white paint, have 
little of an Oriental aspect, and remind him for an 
instant of a bit in a Surrey common. On reaching 
the shore he finds himself in an 023en space, some 
hundred and fifty yards long and a hundred deep, 
bounded in the rear by a precipitous rising ground 
surmounted with prickly pear, in front by the 
Ganges, and to the left by the ruins of what in 
1857 was the village from which the Ghaut takes a 
name. On his right hand rises a picturesque temple, 
dedicated to the joatron deity of fishermen, small 
but in good repair, resembling nothing so much as 
those summer-houses of a century back, which at 
the corners of old wardens overhano- Dutch canals 
and suburban English byways. Passing down the 
wall of this edifice a steep fiight of steps terminates 



IV 



THE TEEACHERY 173 



in the very water of the river, so that a man cannot 
round the corner without wading. This is the scene 
where the traveller experiences to the full the sen- 
timent of the spirit of Cawnpore. In other quarters 
of the station there are objects which evoke no light 
and transient feelings. It is painful to trace the 
faint line of the fortifications, and recognize the site 
of the barrack which contained so much sorrow and 
agony. It is interesting to observe the neat garden 
that strives to beguile away the associations which 
haunt the well of evil fame, and to peruse the in- 
scription indited by a vice-regal hand. It may 
gratify some minds, beneath the roof of a memorial 
church that is now building, to listen while Christian 
worship is performed above a spot which once re- 
sounded with ineffectual prayers and vain ejacula- 
tions addressed to quite other ears. But it is beside 
that little shrine on the brink of the yellow flood 
that none save they who live in the present alone can 
speak with unaltered voice, and gaze with undimmed 
eye. For that is the very place itself where the act 
was accomplished, not yet transformed by votive 
stone and marble. There, at least, in the November 
evening, an Englishman may stand with bare head, 
and, under the canopy of heaven, breathe a silent 
petition for gTace to do in his generation some small 
thing towards the conciliation of races estranged by 
a terrible memory. 

In the course of the Friday evening Tantia Topee 
was closeted with the Nana, and, on leaving, gave 
orders that five guns and as many hundred picked 
musketeers should be mustered at the landing-place 
two hours before daybreak. He likewise enjoined 



174 CAWNPORE chap. 

certain among the rebel nobles to be in attendance 
with their followers at the same rendezvous. The 
cavalry soldiers, to whom the design was imparted, 
exclaimed against such a dastardly breach of faith, 
and would not be convinced until the Maharaja him- 
self took the trouble to assure them, on the authority 
of a royal Brahmin, that according to his creed it 
was permissible to forswear at such a juncture ; and 
that, for his own part, when the object was to an- 
nihilate an enemy, he would not hesitate to take a 
false oath on burning oil or holy water. 

At the prescribed time, Tantia Topee found his 
power assembled on the bank, and straightway pro- 
ceeded to make his dispositions. One gun, under 
the charge of a detachment, was placed among 
the ruins of Mr. Christie's house, which, from a con- 
siderable height above the stream, commanded the 
whole line of boats. A strong body of sepoys took 
cover behind the village of Suttee Chowra. A 
squadron of troopers concealed themselves to the 
south of the Fisherman's Temple. A couple of 
sections were secreted in and about some timber, 
which lay ready to be shipped away ; while a mixed 
party of horse and foot were told off to follow 
our garrison, with directions to form up on the 
wooden bridge as soon as the English rear-guard 
had entered the ravine, and thus cut off the single 
avenue of escape. A field-piece, protected by a 
company of infantry, was posted a quarter of a mile 
down the river : and at a somewhat wider interval 
was stationed a third gun and another company. 
On the opposite shore, directly facing the mouth 
of the lane, stood two cannon, guarded by an entire 



IV THE TREACHERY 175 

battalion of infantry and a regiment of cavalry, 
who had recently attached themselves to the 
insurrection. 

The boats, some few excepted, had been hauled 
into the shallows, and were literally resting on the 
sand. They were of the ordinary country build, 
thirty feet from stem to stern, and twelve feet in 
the beam. They were covered in by a heavy roof 
of straw, with a space at either end left open for 
the steersman and the rowers. At a distance they 
had the air of floating haystacks, rather than of 
vessels; and, indeed, were not unlike the Noah's 
ark of our nurseries, both in their outlines and in 
the number of their crew. Tantia called the boat- 
men together, and bade them hold themselves pre- 
pared, at a given signal, to fire the thatch, and make 
for the shore ; and then, secure of the issue, mounted 
the stairs of the little temple, there to await, amidst 
a crowd of armed retainers, the outcome of his able 
combinations. The men in ambush chattered, and 
shivered, and munched their cold rice, and shared 
the alternate pipe; and the Mussulmans in the 
various groups performed a leisurely obeisance to- 
wards the rising sun, not sorry when his rays broke 
through the chill mist of the morning; and the 
bargemen gathered round fires heaped with a larger 
supply of charcoal than the economic Hindoo is 
wont to expend upon the preparation of his frugal 
breakfast. 

All was quiet in the intrenchment. Brigadier 
Jwala Pershad, with two companions, came overnight 
to Sir Hugh Wheeler, and announced that the trio 
were to remain until the embarkation as hostages 



176 CAWNPORE chap. 

for the good faith of the Peishwa. The plausible 
Hindoo made himself exceedingly agreeable to his 
host ; condoled with the General upon the privations 
which he had undergone, so trying at that advanced 
age ; and intimated his disapprobation of those un- 
grateful soldiers who had turned their arms against 
an old and indulgent commander. He promised 
that, as far as in him lay, he would take care that 
no harm should befall us; and he soon had occasion 
to submit to a test of his good intentions, for a 
rebel sentry in the outlying barracks dropped his 
musket, which exploded in the fall, an accident 
that called forth a rapid and wild discharge from 
all the hostile batteries. Jwala at once despatched 
to the head-quarters of the enemy a message ex- 
plaining the cause of the commotion, and procured 
an immediate cessation of the bombardment. In 
spite of this interruption, the garrison, rendered by 
long suspense and wretchedness careless rather than 
unsuspicious of the future, held high festival upon 
a double ration of boiled lentils and meal-cake, 
washed down by copious draughts of water clouded 
with brick-dust and powdered cement. Though 
many a wish was uttered for bread, and eggs, and 
milk-porridge, and curried fowls, no one dare beg 
or buy of the native sutlers. And so our people 
filled themselves with such food as they could get, 
and rested as men rest who have not slept for a great 
while, and know not when they may sleep again. 
There were those at hand who knew right well. 
Meanwhile, as an earnest of our defeat, a squad of 
mutineers stood guard over the shattered remains 
of the glorious guns which had done all that British 



IV THE TREACHERY 177 

iron could effect for the conservation of British 
honour and British Hves. 

On the morrow, at a very early hour, all Cawnpore 
was astir. The townspeople poured down to the 
landing-place by thousands ; some desirous to catch 
one more glimpse of the kind-hearted strangers who 
had so long sojourned in their midst, and unfeignedly 
sorry to see the last of such easy customers and 
such open-handed masters; others, curious to ob- 
serve whether the Sahibs were much changed by 
their hardships ; others, again, drawn thither by 
a dim expectation that something might happen, 
which it would be a pity to have missed. And the 
mutineers, and the matchlock-men, and the rabble of 
the revolt, swarmed forth from the various dens of de- 
bauchery, and slouched off, yawning and half-armed, 
to bear their part in whatever might be going on. 
And Azimoolah and the brothers of the Peishwa, 
accompanied by a host of nobles, mounted their 
horses, and joined Tantia Topee on the platform of 
the temple. And the Nana did not sleep late, if, 
indeed, he slept at all. When his courtiers had de- 
parted, he dismissed his attendants, and listened in 
solitude for the sounds which should announce that 
the supreme moment had arrived. His mind was 
not in tune for company. 

And our countrymen awoke for the last time. 
There was a great deal to be thought and talked of, 
but not much to be done. The packing did not 
take long. Little had been brought into those hate- 
ful walls, and less yet remained worth removal when 
they came to break up their melancholy establish- 
ment. Some hid about their persons money, or 



178 CAWNPORE CHAP. 

jewellery, or fragments of plate. Others seemed 
to think that a Bible or a book of prayers was a 
treasm^e more likely to be of service in the coming- 
emergency than turquoises, and silver spoons, and 
Qfold sovereims. The able-bodied folk, intent on 
the common safety, stuffed their hats and pockets 
with ball-cartridge ; while a few, over whose hearts, 
softened by the influence of the occasion, affection 
and regret held exclusive sway, bestowed all their 
care upon tokens which the dying had put aside as 
a legacy for the bereaved in England. Many and 
strange were the relics that crossed the Indian 
Ocean in the homeward-bound packets of that 
autumn; locks of hair, and stained sleeves or 
collars, and notes scribbled on the fly-leaf of an 
orderly-book, and pistols, of which some of the 
barrels were still loaded, and others had been fired 
in vain. It was then much as it had been in 
the days of Troy, throughout the villages of an- 
cient Achaia. " The household knew those whom 
" it sent forth to the war ; but, instead of the 
" men, an urn and a poor handful of ashes alone 
" returned." 

And now began to make itself felt a strong dis- 
inclination to quit for ever the place where so much 
had been done and suffered ; a frame of mind which 
afterwards was remarked among the besieged at 
Lucknow who outlived the relief of the Presidency. 
Death, in one of the forms with which all had lately 
grown so conversant, and among associations that, 
if not dear, were at any rate familiar, seemed prefer- 
able to novel exertions and untried perils. More 
than one young subaltern who, a month previously, 



IV THE TREACHERY 179 

would have been ashamed to confess to an emotion, 
stole ten minutes to pay a farewell visit to the loop- 
hole at which, on the morning of the great assault, 
he had fought till his shoulder was blue, and his 
rifle clogged with lead ; or to stand with wet cheeks 
in a nook of the hospital, sacred to his first great 
grief. Not a few peered down the well that lay 
outside the breastwork, with a tacit adieu to those 
whom they left behind, and a wish that it had 
pleased God to unite them, even there. 

If a start was to be made before the advancing 
day had dispelled the freshness of dawn, there was 
no time to be lost. A crowd of carriages and beasts 
of burden had gradually assembled outside the 
north-western corner of the intrenchment. Some 
of the women and children disposed themselves in 
the bullock-carts, while others climbed up to an in- 
secure seat on the padded back of an elephant. A 
fine animal, equipped with a state howdah, and 
steered by the Peishwa's own driver, had been sent 
for the accommodation of Sir Hugh Wheeler. The 
General was touched by the attention; but (un- 
willing, it may be, to form a conspicuous object in 
a corUge so far from triumphal) after seeing his 
wife and daughters safely mounted in the place of 
honour, he ensconced himself in a palanquin, which 
he never left alive. Our soldiers bestowed their dis- 
abled comrades in the litters, without receiving the 
slightest assistance from the native bystanders. It 
was cruel work, the loading of this mournful train. 
The inexperienced good-will of that amateur ambu- 
lance corps occasioned grievous agony to some who 
ought not to have left their beds for months, and 



180 CAWNPOEE chap. 

to some who should never have been moved 
again. 

A number of sepoys mingled with the throng of 
British people, and entered into conversation with 
the gentlemen under whom they had formerly served. 
One and all, they expressed lively admiration for 
the unaccountable obstinacy of our defence. Many 
spoke with commiseration of the distressing condi- 
tion to which those had been reduced for whom they 
entertained so deep a respect; inquired eagerly 
after their missing officers ; and learned their fate 
with tears : conduct which none who have studied 
the Hindoo character can attribute to sheer dissimu- 
lation. Less equivocal were the demonstrations 
displayed towards their employers by certain among 
the better class of domestics. The head bearer of 
Colonel Williams, who commanded the Fifty-sixth 
before the mutiny, deserves to tell his own simple 
story. He says, " Even after the cessation of hos- 
" tilities, we were not allowed to go and see our 
" masters. On the morning of the twenty-sixth of 
" June, three officers of the Fifty-sixth, Goad, 
" Fagan, and Warde, mounted on elephants, and 
" two Europeans, whose names and regiments I don't 
" know, mounted on another elephant, came out 
*' of the intrenchments and went to the river to 
" inspect the boats. The gardener and I, taking 
" some grapes, went up to the officers, and told them 
" that we were in a starving condition, and wanted 
" to come to our masters in the intrenchment. 
" They said, ' No, you can't come with us, but we 
" ' shall come out to-morrow, and you shall accom- 
" ' pany us to Allahabad in boats.' Goad Sahib 



IV THE TREACHERY 181 

" and Warde Sahib gave me each two rupees. They 

" told me that my master had died a natural death ; 

" that my mistress was well, but slightly wounded ; 

" and that Miss Mary was dead. Her death was 

'' caused by fright at the cannonade, and that she 

" was not wounded. On the twenty-seventh of June, 

" a little before six A.M. as many as could walk came 

" out ; some of the wounded in doolies, others of 

" whom were left behind. The party from the in- 

"trenchment was surrounded by sepoys. I had 

" great difficulty in reaching my mistress. I applied 

" to Annundeedeen, the Havildar-major of the Fifty- 

" sixth, who said the thing was impossible. I ap- 

" pealed to him, and begged him to remember the 

" kindness he had received from the Colonel. After 

" persuasion, he said that he could not show his face 

" before the Colonel's lady, but directed four sepoys 

' to take me to my mistress, and prevent my being 

" disturbed. I was then taken to my mistress, with 

" whom were her two daughters, Miss Georgiana 

" and Miss Fanny. They were in wretched plight ; 

" scorched and blistered by the sun. My mistress 

" had a slight bullet-wound on the upper lip. She 

" said that my master had died on the eighth of 

" June. My mistress then asked about the property 

'' left in the house, and inquired about all the ser- 

" vants, and especially after the cook. She then told 

" me to go and fetch him, as she wanted him to go 

" down to Allahabad with her ; and told me to go to 

" her son in the Hills, and inform him of all that 

" had occurred. She told me to make every endea- 

" vour to join her son as soon as the roads should 

" be open, and to show him the spot where the 



182 CAWNPORE chap. 

" Colonel was buried. I told her I did not know 
" the spot. She said the groom who had remained 
" with them in the intrenchment would show it 
"to me." To judge from the attachment of her 
servants, Mrs. Williams must have ruled her house- 
hold like a true lady of the kindly old Anglo-Indian 
school. 

No prayer was said, no blessing invoked, no pass- 
over eaten, before that inauspicious exodus.- Moore 
went about from group to group, and impressed 
upon his colleagues that it would be idle to attempt 
to preserve order in the embarkation. His instruc- 
tions were to push off as soon as all had been got 
on board, and make for the opposite shore, where 
further arrangements might be completed at leisure 
and in comparative safety. And then a drink of 
water was handed in at the door of each palanquin, 
and the expedition set forth. A mob of peasants 
at once rushed upon the deserted premises, and 
spread themselves about in quest of j)lunder. They 
might have spared their pains. A camel-rider, who 
entered among the first, saw nothing except " three 
" useless brass guns that had been split, two leathern 
"bottles of liquid butter, a sack of fine flour, and 
" the bodies of eleven Europeans. They were on 
" quilts on the floor, some of them still breathing, 
" though dying from severe gunshot wounds." 

The show was not such as would dazzle a vulgar 
eye : but in the soul of those with whom glory is 
not skin-deep, the retinue of an imperial coronation 
would fail to inspire the reverence excited by that 
ragged and spiritless cavalcade. First came the 
men of the Thirty-second regiment, their dauntless 



IV THE TREACHERY 183 

captain at the head ; — thinking little, as ever, of the 
past, but much of the future; — and so marching 
unconscious towards the death which he had often 
courted. Then moved on the throng of naked 
bearers, groaning in monotonous cadence beneath 
the weight of palanquins, through whose sliding 
panels might be discerned the pallid forms of the 
wounded ; — their limbs rudely bandaged with shirt- 
sleeves, and old stockings, and strips of gown and 
petticoat. Mayhap, as they jolted along, they fed 
their sickly fancies with a listless anticipation that 
the hour was not remote when they might forget 
the miserable present amidst the joys of ice, and 
lemonade, and clean sheets, and nourishment more 
appetizing than parched grain and bad pease-por- 
ridge. Behind these creaked a caravan of cartS) 
dragged by bullocks, on which were huddled ladies 
used to a very different equipage; while here and 
there paced a stately elephant, his tusks adorned 
with rings of brass, and his forehead painted in gro- 
tesque patterns, who, perchance, a century back, was 
tugging a gun across the field of Plassy, and who 
now bore a cluster of English women and children 
clinging nervously to the ropes which encircled his 
huge girth. And next, musket on shoulder and 
revolver in belt, followed they who could still walk 
and fight. Step was not kept in those ranks. Little 
was there of martial array, or soldier-like gait and 
attitude. Lace might not be seen, nor embroidery, 
nor facings, nor uniforms which could be recognized 
at the Horse Guards or smiled on in county ball- 
rooms. In discoloured flannel and tattered nankeen, 
mute and in pensive mood, tramped by the remnant 



184 CAWNPORE chap. 

of the immortal garrison. These men had finished 
their toil and had fought their battle : and now, if 
hope was all but dead within them, there survived, 
at least, no residue of fear. 

The last to quit the intrenchment was Major 
Vibart, of the Second Cavalry. He brought up the 
rear of our column alone, amidst a numerous escort 
of mutineers belonging to his late regiment, who 
insisted on conveying his luggage down to the land- 
ing-place ; — a marked instance of complaisance on 
the part of these gentlemen troopers. There were 
many, however, among the rebels who no longer 
thought it worth while to dissemble. Lady Wheeler's 
ayah, a few minutes . before, had been presented by 
her mistress with a bag of rupees as an acknow- 
ledgment of her fidelity. She now was forced to 
exchange her treasure for a slash with a sabre. 
Some sepoys, who had stood by us to the last, were 
seized and carried off in spite of the urgent expostu- 
lations of their Adjutant : and the hour approached 
when a brave woman was to meet that face to face, 
the bitterness of which, to repeat her own language, 
had already been tasted many, many times. Colonel 
and Mrs. Ewart had started late; she on foot; he 
on a bed, carried by four native porters. From one 
cause and another they made slow progress. The 
bearers were lazy ; and paid no attention to a Mem 
Sahib, whose husband, prostrate with wounds, was 
unable to enforce her orders with his cane. Gradu- 
ally the main body drew farther and farther ahead 
of the helpless pair ; who, at length, like a sick child 
dreaming that he is kidnapped by gipsies, saw the 
backs of the English rear-guard disappear round 



IV THE TREACHERY 185 

a distant corner. As the litter came abreast of 
St. John's Church, seven or eight rascals belonging 
to the Colonel's own battalion stepped up ; bade the 
porters set down their load and stand back ; and 
began to mock their victim, saying, " Is not this a 
fine parade, and is it not well dressed up ? " They 
then hewed him in pieces with their swords, and 
afterwards turned to Mrs. Ewart, and desired her to 
throw down whatever she had about her, and go her 
ways, for that she was a woman, and they would not 
kill her. She took out of her dress a piece of stuff, 
with something tied up in it, and delivered it to 
one of the gang, who thereupon cut her down dead. 
Those who loved her, and they were many, could 
not have wished it otherwise. 

Presently the van reached the white rails of the 
wooden bridge, and, leaving them on the left hand, 
turned aside into the fatal ravine. A vast multi- 
tude, speechless and motionless as spectres, watched 
their descent into that valley of the shadow of death. 
Only some sepoys, gazing on the trappings of the 
elephants, said one to another, " They are taken out 
" of their fortress grandly. They go gladly. They 
"know not what is before them. Now let them 
" repent of their misdeeds, and ask j)ardon of God." 
Soon Tantia Topee, who for some while past had 
been anxiously glancing towards the west, saw the 
white faces and gleaming bayonets ; saw the dark 
tops of the palanquins dancing up and down; saw 
the howdahs swaying from right to left above the 
sea of heads. Then he called to a bandsman who 
was in attendance, and directed him to proceed 
up the lane, and sound his bugle when once the 



186 CAWNPORE chap. 

Europeans were well within the trap. Slowly, very 
slowly, with many a halt and many an entanglement, 
the unwieldy mass of men and brutes wound along 
the bed of the torrent. 

And now the last Englishman walked down into 
the lane ; and immediately the troops who had been 
appointed to that duty formed a double line across 
the mouth of the gorge, and told all who were not 
concerned to retire and keep aloof, for that within 
that passage there was no admittance save on one 
baleful business. Meantime the embarkation was 
progressing under serious difficulties. No tem- 
porary pier had been provided, nor even a plank 
to serve as gangway. None of the Hindoo boatmen 
or bearers spoke a word or lent a hand, while, stand- 
ing knee-deep in the stream, our officers hoisted 
in the wounded and the women. Already they 
were themselves preparing to scramble on board ; — 
already the children were rejoicing over the sight of 
some boiled rice which they had discovered in the 
corner of a barge ; — when, amidst the sinister silence 
which prevailed, the blast of a bugle came pealing 
down the defile. Thereupon the native rowers leaped 
into the water, and splashed towards dry ground; while 
those very troopers who had conducted Major Vibart 
from the barrack with such professions of esteem 
discharged their carbines at the nearest vessel. The 
Englishmen, whose rifles were handy, at once opened 
fire, some on the traitorous crews, others on the hypo- 
critical scoundrels who had commenced the attack. 
But of a sudden several of the straw roofs burst 
into a flame, and almost the entire fleet was blazing 
in the twinkling of an eye. The red-hot charcoal 



IV 



THE TREACHERY 187 



had done its work. At the .same moment from 
either shore broke forth a storm of grape and mus- 
ketry. To the imagination of om* countrymen, 
oppressed and bewildered by the infernal tumult, 
it seemed that the land was alive with a hundred 
cannon and a myriad of sharpshooters. The 
wounded perished under the burning thatch, while 
all who could shift for themselves dropped into the 
river. Of the ladies, some crouching beneath the 
overhanging prows, some wading up to their chins 
along the shelving bottom, sought shelter from the 
bullets, which sprinkled the surface like falling rain. 
The men set their shoulders against the planking, 
and tried to launch off into the mid-current. But he 
who had chosen those moorings never intended that 
the keels should leave the sand-bank on which they lay. 
All the boats stuck fast, save a poor three, of which 
two drifted across to the Oude bank into the jaws 
of the perdition which in that quarter also awaited 
their inmates. The third got clear away from the 
shallows, and floated steadily down the main channel. 
Whether fortuitously, or by the attraction of like to 
like, it so befell that the flower of the defence was 
congregated between those bulwarks. They were 
Vibart ; and Whiting, good at need ; and Ashe, be- 
reaved of his beloved nine-pounder ; and Delafosse 
of the burning gan ; and Bolton, snatched once 
more from present destruction. There was Moore, 
with his arm slung in a handkerchief ; and Blenman, 
the bold spy; and Glanville of Barrack Number 
Two ; and Burney of the south-east battery. Fate 
seemed willing to defer the hour which should ex- 
tinmiish those noble lives. 



188 CAWNPORE 



CHAP. 



When, after the lapse of some twent}^ minutes, 
the dead began to outnmiiber the Kving ; — when 
the fire slackened, as the marks grew few and far 
between; then the troopers who had been drawn 
up to the right of the temple plunged into the 
river, sabre between teeth, and pistol in hand. There- 
upon two half-caste Christian women, the wives of 
musicians in the band of the Fifty-sixth, witnessed a 
scene which should not be related at second-hand. 
" In the boat where I was to have gone," says Mrs. 
Bradshaw, confirmed throughout by Mrs. Setts, 
"was the school-mistress and twenty-two missies. 
"General Wheeler came last, in a palkee. They 
" carried him into the water near the boat. I stood 
" close by. He said, ' Carry me a little further 
" ' towards the boat.' But a trooper said, ' No ; 
" ' gfet out here.' As the General o^ot out of the 
" palkee, head foremost, the trooper gave him a cut 
" with his sword into the neck, and he fell into the 
" water. My son was killed near him. I saw it ; 
" alas ! alas ! Some were stabbed with bayonets : 
"others cut down. Little infants were torn in 
"pieces. We saw it; we did; and tell you only 
"what we saw. Other children were stabbed and 
''thrown into the river. The school-girls were burnt 
"to death. I saw their clothes and hair catch 
"fire. In the water, a few paces off, by the next 
"boat, we saw the youngest daughter of Colonel 
" Williams. A sepoy was going to kill her with his 
"bayonet. She said, 'My father was always kind 
" ' to sepoys.' He turned away, and just then a 
"villager struck her on the head with his club, 
"and she fell into the water." These people like- 



IV . THE TREACHERY 189 

wise saw good Mr. MoncriefF, tlie clergyman, take a 
book from liis pocket that he never had leisure to 
open, and heard him commence a prayer for mercy 
which he was not permitted to conclude. Another 
deponent observed a European making for a drain 
like a scared water-rat, when some boatmen, armed 
with cudgels, cut off his retreat, and beat him down 
dead into the mud. 

At this point those Englishmen who had learned 
to use their limbs in the water, perceiving that all 
was lost, with a hurried last look and a parting 
shudder, stripped and made for Vibart's boat, 
which just then was aground not far from the 
opposite shore. Thomson swam, and Private Mur- 
phy, neither for the last time. Three cavalry soldiers 
chased Lieutenant Harrison on to a small island 
two hundred yards from the land. One only waded 
back again, quicker than he came ; while Harrison 
made the best of his way to the stranded vessel, 
and clambered over the side, satisfied at having 
taught his pursuers that it was never safe to trifle 
with a Sahib, as long as he had breath in his body 
and a charge in a single chamber. Few were 
vigorous or fortunate as he. Their strength failed 
some ; while more than one stout swimmer, shot 
dead in the middle of his stroke, rolled over and 
sank amidst the reddening tide. Of the two Hen- 
dersons, the younger went down in his brother's 
sight, while the elder hardly struggled in with a 
shattered hand through the pattering mitraillade. 
At length all were on board who had not disappeared 
below the waves ; and, by dint of hard shoving, the 
boat scraped herself off the shoal, and continued 



190 CAWNPOEE chap. 

her sluggish and devious course : — that hapless Argo 
with her freight of heroes. 

"At nine, or half-past nine in the morning," 
writes Nanukchund, who was in hiding at a neigh- 
bouring village, " I heard the report of cannon, 
"and immediately despatched my servant for news, 
" and to learn why guns were being lired. At about 
" noon, more or less, he returned, and reported that 
"the 23eople who came to bathe in the Ganges 
"informed him that the intrenchment had been 
" taken by the rebels, and the corpses of Europeans 
" were floating down the river. The villagers ex- 
" claim, in their village dialect, that the Ganges has 
"turned crimson, and it is impossible to look upon 
"it. The terror and alarm that now seizes me 
"baffles description. It seems sacrilege to take 
" any sort of food or drink. I can think of nothing 
"but moving about from side to side with terror." 
Besides Nanukchund, there was another, whose 
agitation, arising from very different passions, dis- 
played itself by the same noticeable symptom. A 
rich Hindoo, even though he be not of such gross 
habit as was the Nana, never walks a step unless 
under dire compulsion : and yet, during the early 
forenoon, Dhoondoo Punth seldom rested quiet in 
his chair, but paced to and fro in front of his tent, 
straining his ears to catch the noise of horse-hoofs. 
At last a trooper galloped down with the tidings 
that all was going well, and the Peishwa would soon 
obtain ample compensation for his ancient wrongs. 
The Maharaja bade the courier return to the field of 
action, bearing a verbal order to keep the women 
alive, but kill all the males. By the time Tantia's 



IV THE TREACHERY 191 

aide-de-camp returned to liis chief, the latter in- 
junction appeared all but superfluous : though there 
was still something to be done. The sepoys posted 
on the Oude bank had excepted certain Englishmen 
from the slaughter of the two boatfuls which had 
fallen into their hands. These, to the sum of 
seventeen, they now sent over as their contribution. 
On reference being made to the Maharaja, he 
graciously acknowledged the present, and desired a 
firing-party to be told off; suggesting, however, that 
powder should not be wasted on the wounded. His 
directions were obeyed to the letter. A couple of 
files were likewise detached to see that the sufferers 
who still lingered in the intrenchment did not take 
too long to die. 

Meanwhile the women and children, whom the 
shot had missed and the flames spared, had been 
collected and brought to land in evil case. Many 
were pulled out from under the charred woodwork 
of boats, and others were driven up from four feet 
depth of water. Before they emerged from the 
river, some of the ladies were roughly handled by 
the troopers, who tore away such ornaments as 
caught their fancy with little regard for ear or finger. 
But, when all had been assembled on the landing- 
place, sentries were posted around, with a strict 
charge to suffer no one to molest the prisoners. There 
they sat, a hundred and twenty and five by count, 
some on logs of timber, and others in the trodden 
sand, a very feeble company in sore distress. Their 
destitution aroused the compassion of a party of 
water-carriers, who gave them drink out of the skin's 
mouth, as they cowered beneath the pitiless sun. 



192 CAWNPORE ohap. 

On the shore of the Ganges, in the midst of that 
deviHsh horde, those English girls and matrons 
abode till the morning was almost spent. And then 
they were led back along the road which they had 
traversed a few hours before ; not as they came, for 
nothing was left them now, save a new mef and a 
sharper terror. In front, behind, and on either side, 
sm-ged along a crowd of sepoys, exulting with an un- 
holy joy, and rich with inglorious spoils. This one 
carried a girdleful of rupees and broken jewellery. 
That had secured a double-barrelled fowling-piece, 
marked with a name illustrious in the London trade. 
Another dragged a fine setter or Skye terrier, the 
pride of some cadet who, in too harsh a school, had 
taken his first and last lesson of war. They started 
beside the Fisherman's Temple. They threaded the 
winding lane. They plodded wearily past the white 
railing and the European bazaar ; past the chapel, 
and the Racket Court, and the ruinous intrench- 
ment. Through the disputed line of outposts, and 
across the plain they went, until the procession 
halted before the pavilion of the Maharaja ; who, 
after reviewing his captives, ordered them to be 
transported to the Savada House, and there confined 
until further notice. Two large rooms, where a 
number of native soldiers had slept nightly during 
the previous month, were cleared out for their recep- 
tion ; and a guard placed over them from the ranks 
of the Sixth Regiment, which had lately marched 
in from Allahabad. 

"I saw that many of the ladies were wounded," 
says one who watched them go by. " Their clothes 
'•had blood on them. Two were badly hurt, and 



IV THE TREACHERY l03 

" had their heads bound up with handkerchiefs. 
" Some were wet, covered with mud and blood ; and 
" some had their dresses torn, but all had clothes. 
" I saw one or two children without clothes. There 
" were no men in the party, but only some boys of 
''twelve or thirteen years of age." Another eye- 
witness remarks : " The ladies' clothing was wet and 
"soiled, and some of them were barefoot. Many 
" were wounded. Two of them I observed well, as 
"being wounded in the leg and under the arm." 
To such a plight had come the bloom which once, 
fresh from the breezes of home, charmed and 
puzzled Calcutta ; and the toilettes whose importa- 
tion and inspection supplied matter for a month's 
conjecture, and a week's happy occupation. Where 
were now the tact, the cultivation, and all the inde- 
finable graces of refined womanhood ? Simplicity 
and affectation, amiability and pride, coquetry and 
reserve, discretion and sweet susceptibility, were 
here confounded in a dull uniformity of woe. 

Four Englishwomen, and three others of mixed 
parentage, were appropriated and carried off by the 
soldiers of the Second Cavalry : a corps which, now 
that the fighting was over, never lost an opportunity 
of distinguishing itself. These men were summoned 
into the presence of the Nana, who remonstrated 
with them at some length, and insisted that the 
whole seven should be restored without delay. It 
may be that he regarded his prisoners as hostages, 
and was unwilling that they should be scattered 
about in places where he could not lay his hand 
upon them at the precise moment when his life 
or power might be at stake. All obeyed promptly, 



194 CAWNPORE chap. 

witli the exception of Ali Klian, a young trooper, 
described as of " a fair complexion ; height about 
" five feet seven inches ; long nose ; dark eyes ; 
" wears a beard and small moustache." This fellow 
had selected, as his share of the booty, the youngest 
daughter of Sir Hugh. He must have been one of 
a pair who were observed "leading away from the 
" boats a lady on horseback. She wore a green 
" chintz gown, which appeared to be wet. She 
" seemed to be eighteen or nineteen years of age." 
Ali Khan now contrived to spread a report that his 
victim flung herself down a well, after killing her 
captor, his wife, and his three children. His de- 
vice met with extraordinary success. In Hindo- 
stan it is never a very difficult matter to find 
witnesses who will swear to anything ; and, before 
long, a private in the Second began to remember 
that he had been passing his comrade's door when 
Miss Wheeler came out, with a sword in her hand, 
and said : " Go in and see how nicely I have rubbed 
the Corporal's feet." Another individual, blessed 
with an elastic memory, had been present at the 
dragging of the well, and had seen " Missy Baba 
taken out, dead and swollen." The impudent 
fabrication was generally accepted in the city and 
the cantonments ; and met with ready credence in 
England, where the imaginations of men were ex- 
cited by a series of prurient and ghastly fictions. 
Under one shape or another the incident long went 
the round of provincial theatres, and sensation 
magazines, and popular lectures illustrated with 
dissolving views. Meanwhile the poor girl was 
living quietly in the family of her master under a 



IV THE TREACHERY 195 

Moliammedau name. Our police made diligent in- 
quiries, which resulted in a strong conviction that 
she had accompanied the flight of the rebels, and, 
after being hurried about from camping-ground to 
camping-ground, had met a natural death in a corner 
of Nepaul. She was by no means of pure Enghsh 
blood. To some the very statement of the fact may 
appear heartless, but truth demands that it should 
be made. 

The ladies on board the surviving vessel had no 
reason to congratulate themselves on their fortune : 
for they were embarked on a voyage which, for 
concentrated misery, has no parallel even among the 
narratives of famous shipwrecks so dear to the 
taste of our forefathers. Soon after leaving the 
shore. Major Vibart had taken a large party off a 
smking boat ; so that more than five-score persons 
were crowded into a space which could barely ac- 
commodate fifty. It was difficult to propel the 
craft, and impossible to guide her. A shot from 
the southern bank sent her spinning round in the 
current, with a broken rudder; and the native boat- 
men had taken good care to leave behind neither 
oar nor punt-pole. Alternately stranding and drift- 
ing ; paddling with planks torn from the bulwarks, 
and trying to steer with a spare stretcher ; our coun- 
trymen tended down towards Allahabad at the rate 
of half a mile an hour, under a shower of canister 
and shells from either bank. " We were often," says 
Thomson, " within a hundred yards of the guns on 
" the Oude side of the river, and saw them load, 
"prime, and fire into our midst." Presently the 
bullocks which drew the sepoy artillery broke down 



196 CAWNPORE chap. 

in the deep sand of the Ganges ; but incessant 
volleys of musketiy, at point-blank range, allowed 
our countrymen little leisure to rejoice over the 
intermission of the cannonade. 

That day Avas the last to many brave men. Ashe 
and Bolton leaped out to help haul the boat oif a 
sunken bank : and a few minutes later she proceeded 
on her way without those two young Sahibs whom a 
thousand bullets had spared to perish here. Moore, 
regardless of an ill-set collar-bone, was pushing with 
might and main, when a musket-ball pierced his 
gallant heart. One and the same round shot at 
length killed Burney, and at length Glanville ; and 
so maltreated a third officer that it would have been 
well had he died likewise. The wounded and the 
slain lay entangled together amidst the broken floor- 
ing. It was a matter of extreme difficulty to extri- 
cate the corpses from the bottom of the vessel : but 
the desire of decreasing her draft, and the intense 
heat of what proved to be the last day of that year's 
dry weather, obliged the crew to cast overboard the 
dear but useless cargo. 

About five o'clock that evening the boat settled 
down deep in the sand. Our countrymen waited 
patiently till the sunset allowed them to disembark 
the women under the screen of darkness. Having 
thus lightened their unwieldy ark they set to with a 
will, and succeeded eventually in getting her adrift. 
The rebels did what they could to impede the opera- 
tion. They launched a fire-ship down the current, 
which came within a few feet of its mark; and, 
when this contrivance had miscarried, they shot off 
a flight of arrows tipped with lighted charcoal. 



IV 



THE TREACHERY 197 



Though no very skilful archers, they could not well 
help hitting the thatched roof which loomed through 
the dusk like the top of a great barn : so that our 
people thought it better to cut away and tumble into 
the flood the entire framework of straw and bamboo. 
No one slept that night, and no one ate : for food 
there was none on board. They had abundance of 
water : for Ganges flowed beneath ; and from over- 
head descended a light and refreshing shower, the 
unfailing precursor of the annual deluge. 

When the day broke, those of our officers who 
had learned the bearings of the locaHty during many 
a hot tramp after snipe and wild-fowl saw with 
chagrin that they had hardly gained ten miles in 
twice as many hours. And yet that dawn brought 
one last glimmer of hope. The wet weather had 
arrived : the river v>^ould soon be mounting fast : 
and nothing was to be seen of the enemy. Pre- 
sently some natives walked down the bank for their 
mornino- wash ; and Yibart sent on shore a native 
drummer, with five rupees in his hand, and direc- 
tions to obtain information, and, if possible, some 
provisions. He accosted a peasant, who desi-sted 
from the occupation of cleaning his mouth with a 
bit of stick chewed into a tooth-brush, and listened 
very civilly to what our envoy had to say. This 
man undertook to procure some rice and flour, but 
assured the drummer that our people would have 
no further need of victuals, as Baboo Ram Bux, a 
powerful noble whose estates lay a little further 
down on the Oude side, had engaged that not an 
Englishman should pass his territory alive. He, 
however, showed no objection to take our money, 



198 CAWNPORE chap. 

and went inland, leaving behind his brass drinking- 
vessel to guarantee his fidelity : a pledge which 
he never came back to redeem. On hearing the 
report of their messenger the fugitives agreed to 
despair. After the manner of becalmed and starv- 
ing mariners, Whiting pencilled some lines on a 
scrap of paper, which he inclosed in a bottle, and 
committed to the stream : the faithless stream, that 
has never rendered up the sad deposit. 

At two in the afternoon the barge struck off 
a village called Nuzzufgur, which was within the 
boundary of Eam Bux. Straightway the shore was 
covered with a multitude of feudal militia, inter- 
mingled with sepoys and mounted troopers. A gun 
was brought forward, and unlimbered ; but, while 
the artillerymen were taking their aim, there came 
down from heaven that unbroken sheet of water 
for which men had been looking during the past 
fortnight. The rains had begun in earnest. The 
piece could only be discharged once ; but the storm 
did not protect our people from a keen fusillade. 
Whiting fell dead ; and Harrison's trusty revolver 
here availed him nothing ; and dark Blenman, sorely 
hurt, implored a comrade to put an end to his 
wayward existence. Yibart was shot through the 
arm, and his subordinates, Quin and Seppings ; 
while Mrs. Seppings and Captain Turner of the 
First Infantry were badly wounded in the leg. After 
five hours of this bitter work there hove in sight 
a boat manned by fifty or sixty mutineers, armed 
to the teeth, who had been deputed by the Nana 
to follow and destroy the relics of our force. This 
vessel, likewise, ran on a sand-bank ; not altogether 



TV THE TREACHERY 199 

against the inclination of the crew, who did not 
relish the notion of forming themselves into a board- 
ing-party. They liked the idea still less when a 
score of Englishmen came dashing at them through 
the shallows. The half-dozen ablest swimmers alone 
escaped to tell their master that, after all they had 
gone through, these extraordinary Sahibs were the 
same as ever. 

Amidst pelting rain and freshening wind the 
second night closed in. Faint and hungry they 
sank asleep, those men who would only yield to 
death. At midnight some of their number awoke, 
and became conscious that they were again afloat. 
It was blowing a hurricane ; the stream had risen ; 
and there were found those who hoped. But day- 
light told another story, for it revealed that they 
had turned aside out of the navigable channel into a 
back water, from which egress was none. And then 
their vessel grounded, and the musketry recom- 
menced. Vibart, who was already dying with a ball 
through either arm, desired Thomson and Delafosse 
to land and beat away the enemy, while those who 
remained attempted to ease off the boat. The two 
officers selected a sergeant and eleven rank and file 
of various regiments ; and the party sallied forth, 
fortunate in that it was appointed for some to tread 
once more on English soil, and for the rest at least 
to die sword in hand. They had not departed 
many minutes when a host of insurgents poured 
down upon the helpless troop of women and 
wounded men, like wolves upon a flock of sheep 
deserted by their dogs. The boat was captured 
after a short but murderous conflict, and escorted 



200 CAWNPORE chap. 

back to Cawnpore by a strong body of horse and 
foot. 

Thomson and Delafosse had enough on then- 
hands abeady, and could do Httle or nothing towards 
a rescue. On gaining the shore they drove the 
foe in style over a considerable space ; but were 
imperceptibly surrounded in flank and rear by fresh 
swarms of rebels. Then they faced about, and cut 
their way back to the place whence they started, 
bleeding, but undiminished in number. They recog- 
nized the spot, but the boat was gone, and so the 
little troop, reduced henceforward to travel afoot, 
followed the course of the stream ; partly on the 
slender chance of catching up their lost companions ; 
partly from an instinctive feeling which drew them 
in the direction of Allahabad, as the wounded 
rabbit makes for its burrow, or the winged partridge 
scurries to the nearest hedge. With an interval 
of twenty paces between man and man, to lessen 
the hazard of the hostile musketry, they retreated 
step by stej), loading and firing as best they might 
upon the horde of pursuers, who pressed nearer 
and ever nearer. Shoeless on rugged ground, bare- 
headed beneath the burning sun, they fought over 
three weary miles of alternate rock and sand, until 
all but one got safe into a little temple, or " Sammy- 
house," as it is called in the jargon spoken by 
the British private in India ; a jargon which he 
himself denominates "Moors." This rustic shrine, 
situated about a hundred yards from the river- 
brink, was just large enough to contain the thirteen 
as they stood erect. The mob of natives charged 
helter-skelter at the doorway, which was raised three 



IV THE TREACHEEY 201 

feet above the surrounding earth ; but there was no 
room for any of them inside, and they presently 
retired to a distance, except the eight or ten who 
had managed to squeeze themselves to the front. 
Among those who learned by experience that the 
rust of the rainy season had not yet blunted the 
British bayonets was a brother of Baboo Ram Bux, 
the inhospitable chieftain who knew no reverence 
for suppliants who had sought sanctuary in the 
precincts of his local gods, and who now sent an 
express to the Nana to the effect that the Nazarenes 
were still invincible. 

Our countrymen after this enjoyed a short respite, 
during which they shared a pint or two of putrid 
water which had collected at the bottom of a hole 
in the stone altar. Unfortunately the piety of the 
neighbourhood had of late failed to contribute any 
oblations of fruit or cakes, which would certainly 
not have been respected by the famished Christians. 
. But the insurgents soon returned to the attack ; 
made an unsuccessful attempt to dig up the founda- 
tions ; and finally, with the view of smoking the 
besieged out of their citadel, constructed and set 
alight a large pile of faggots. It was not till the 
enemy showed signs of an intention to mend the 
.fire with some bags of gunpowder that the garrison 
began to be seriously alarmed. Then they rushed 
out, scattering the embers with their bare feet, 
and leaped the parapet which inclosed the plot of 
dedicated ground. Six, who could not swim, ran 
full into the middle of the crowd, carrying their 
lives for sale to the best market. Seven reached 
the bank, and flung in their firelocks, and then 



202 CAWNPORE chap. 

themselves. The lead in their pouches dragged 
them so far down that the first flight of bullets 
splashed harmless on the troubled surface. By the 
time the sepoys had reloaded their pieces, a score 
of rapid strokes had rendered our countrymen by no 
means easy targets for an excited Hindoo marksman. 
Two were shot through the head. Another, over- 
come with exhaustion, turned over on his back, and 
yielded to the stream, which impelled him towards 
a shoal where his murderers were awaiting him with 
uplifted bludgeons. The others resisted the blandish- 
ments of the wily foe, who endeavoured to coax 
them within push of lance by offers of food and 
life, and, ducking like coots at the flash of musketry, 
swam, and floated, and swam again ; while Ganges, 
as if resenting the desecration of its holy waves by 
such an Iliad of bloodshed, bare bravely up the 
chin of these fugitives who had confided themselves 
to his protection. One by one the hunters desisted 
from the chase. A trooper on horseback kept the 
game in view for some miles ; but in the end he too 
fell behind, and was no more seen. 

The four Englishmen were sitting up to their 
necks in water, two good leagues below the point 
where they first plunged, when the sound of ap- 
proaching voices again sent them diving after the 
manner of otters surprised by the throng of hounds 
and spearmen. As they rose to the upper air, they 
were greeted with a shout of " Sahib ! Sahib ! 
" Why keep away ? We are friends." The new- 
comers, however, were so formidable in aspect and 
equipment that Thomson refused to come to land 
until, after a short parley, they volunteered to throw 



IV THE TEEACHERY 203 

their weapons into the river as a proof of their 
sincerity. Their assurances of amity afforded our 
countrymen a passable excuse for giving in, without 
inspiring any great amount of confidence. At the 
very worst, a blow on the head or a thrust in the 
chest killed more expeditiously than drowning or 
inanition. It was better to die and have done with 
it, than to endure all the torment of death without 
the repose, as of late had seemed to be their appor- 
tioned lot. And so they turned, and swam in, 
and were helped ashore naked and exhausted. 
They had between them a flannel shirt, a strip of 
linen cloth, and five severe wounds. Exposure to 
the heat had puffed the skin of their shoulders with 
huge blisters, as if their clothes had been burned off 
their backs by fire. But they found a trusty and 
generous host in the person of Dirigbijah Sing, a 
loyal gentleman of Oude; the landlord of that 
district, and the chieftain to whom their captors 
owed feudal allegiance. Good-natured as they 
proved to be, these fellows could not resist the 
temptation of plundering the Englishmen who had 
been so unaccountably delivered into their hands. 
They abstracted a cap-pouchful of rupees which 
poor Murphy had tied under his right knee, 
the nominal price, it may be, of some buckets drawn 
at a risk which could not be valued in money. 
After lying for a while wrapped in blankets, the 
refugees recovered strength sufficient to allow of 
their being supported to the nearest village, over a 
distance which appeared to them more miles than 
it was furlongs in reality. They were taken to the 
hut of the headman, who received them kindly, and 



204 OAWNPORE chap. 

set before them lentil porridge, wheat cakes, and 
preserves, of which they ate like men who had 
fed little and badly during a month past, and for 
seventy hours had not fed at all. 

After a long meal and a short nap the English- 
men set out for the fort where Dirigbijah Sing- 
resided; Thomson clad with the solitary shirt, and 
Delafosse in a borrowed rug. Private Murphy and 
Gunner Sullivan were suffering too much from recent 
wounds to care about appearances. The officers 
resigned to them an elej)hant which had been 
despatched for their conveyance, and bestrode a 
pony, like a pair of needy and valiant knights 
belonging to a primitive order. As they passed 
through the villages, peasants came forth with milk 
and sweetmeats, and discovered that the Sahibs 
had changed their opinion as to the acceptability of 
" dollies " ; those presents of Oriental dainties which 
collectors and commissioners contemptuously make 
over to their servants, reserving a handful of pistachio 
nuts for the children, and a box of Cabul grapes 
to improve the dessert of their next dinner-party. 
Darkness set in ere the cavalcade rode up to the 
fort of Moorar Mhow. The Rajah, an old man of 
venerable presence, was seated in the open air 
encircled by his sons, his body-guard, his tenants, 
and his torch-bearers, to the number of some hun- 
dred and fifty persons. He requested our country- 
men to alight; inquired minutely into the story 
of the siege; evinced warm approbation of their 
courage, and wonder at their escape ; and after pro- 
mising his countenance and hospitality, sent them 
indoors to an abundant repast washed down with 



IV THE TREACHERY 205 

native wine. Tired of everything save eating, they 
supped right well, and then, stretched on horse- 
litter and covered with a bit of carpet, the wanderers 
rested at last. Soundly they slumbered that night ; 
and soundly, too, slumbered their six comrades, 
on whom the moon looked down through her watery 
veil as they lay around the little temple amidst the 
trampled brushwood, on their brow the frown of 
battle, and in their breast the wound that doth 
not shame. 

Here the four Englishmen remained for three 
weeks unmolested and tolerably happy. They had 
spent at least one equal period of time in far less 
comfortable quarters. They wore coats and trousers 
cut by a native tailor. Their hurts were poulticed 
by a native doctor. They sat down thrice a day with 
British appetites to a meal of native food; and, 
whenever there was nothing else to be done, they 
slept. Heedless of the flies, which clustered about 
their bandaged limbs : careless of the future, and 
willingly oblivious of the past, — they dreamed, and 
woke, and yawned, and shifted their straw, and 
settled themselves down for another lit of drowsiness. 
Azimoolah might have his eye upon them : the Nana 
might have spoken the word of doom : up to Delhi 
and down to Patna every pass might be blockaded 
by a rebel post ; but for the present they could doze, 
morning, noon, and eve. Their principal diversion 
consisted in viewing the performance by the Rajah 
and his priests of some quaint and pretty domestic 
rites. The master of the house paid them a daily 
and very pleasant visit ; and his good lady sent con- 
stantly to ask after the welfare of the strangers, 



206 CAWNPOKE chap. 

whose fearless deportment uuder their abject and 
precarious circumstances she had noted with 
womanly interest, as she gazed, herself invisible, 
from behind the fretted stone-work which fenced 
her verandah. 

Thomson and his companions were forbidden by 
their host to set foot outside the circuit of the walls, 
as the vicinity was infested with rebels, who already 
regarded the country as their own, and appeared to 
imagine themselves welcome anywhere. There were 
generally some of them inside the fort, vapouring 
about sword on thigh and matchlock in hand, and 
pestering the domestics to get them a sight of the 
Sahibs. The soldiers of the Cawnpore brigade were 
indulged in frequent interviews with their former 
officers, always in the presence of a detachment from 
the Eajah's body-guard. These mutineers were full 
of the great things that were going to be done in the 
course of the next year by the armies of the religion. 
A trooper had been despatched to Moscow on a 
camel, and was to return with a host of Russian 
Mussulmans. Such Englishmen as had not yet been 
knocked on the head were to be secured and shipped 
off at Calcutta; and afterwards the Nana would 
embark for Europe, conquer our island, and make it 
over to Hindoo shareholders constituted into a joint- 
stock Kumpani. That magic word would conjure up 
a fresh train of ideas, and they would descant upon 
the flagrant iniquity of Lord Dalhousie, and main- 
tain that, had it not been for the annexation of 
Oude, the empire of John Kumpani might have en- 
dured for all time : but that it was not so ordained ; 
inasmuch as the ancient oracles, which could not lie, 



It THE TREACHERY 207 

had allotted to that empire a duration of a hundred 
years, and no more. This prediction came true, but 
not in the sense anticipated by the leaders of the 
insurrection. The honour of justifying this prophecy 
was reserved for Sir Charles Wood and Lord Stanley ; 
not for Azimoolah and the Maharaja of Bithoor. That 
potentate repeatedly summoned Dirigbijah Sing to 
deliver up the refugees to his regal arbitrement : but 
the stout old fellow answered that he held of His 
Majesty the King of Oude, and knew nothing of 
Seereek Dhoondoo Punth and his pretensions to 
royalty. Havelock and Neill soon ]Drovided the 
Nana with more j)ressing business than the j^ursuit 
of his vengeance, or the assertion of his supremacy. 

The Rajah came to the conclusion that a change 
of domicile was essential to the security of our coun- 
trymen, about the time that they were growing sated 
of laughing at sepoy bluster, and watching the Brah- 
mins of the household ring bells and sprinkle flowers 
with holy water. They accordingly retired to the 
seclusion of a hamlet bordering on the river, where 
they amused themselves as best they could with a 
volume bearing the inscription, " 53rd Regiment 
Native Infantry Book Club ; " which had been picked 
out of the stream by one among their attend- 
ants, as it floated by amidst a quantity of torn 
papers and smashed furniture : so many indications 
of the minute and searching character of the mischief 
that was being wrought above. After the lapse of 
a week, the Rajah sent them across to a landholder 
of his acquaintance, who lived on the south bank, 
and who undertook to hand them on to the nearest 
European encampment. They took leave of their 



208 CAWNPORE chap. 

chivalrous preserver with many expressions of un- 
affected regret, and a silent resolution never to rest 
until he had received some tangible mark of their 
gratitude and regard. On reaching the other shore 
their new patron packed them off towards Allahabad 
by a cross-road, in a bullock-cart without springs, 
preceded by an escort of four armed retainers. After 
bumping along for an hour the driver stopped, and 
informed them, in low and agitated tones, that there 
were guns ahead, planted athwart their path. And 
so they alighted, those way-worn fugitives, solicitous 
to learn whether they should again have to run, and 
swim, and lurk, and starve ; and they crept stealthily 
along the edge of the road, and, turning the corner, 
found themselves within a few yards of the white and 
freckled face of an English sentry. 

Five years subsequently Murphy left his old regi- 
ment, and volunteered for India in another corps. 
Presently it began to be rumoured at mess that 
there was a man in the ranks who had gone through 
the siege and the slaughter of Cawnpore. The 
Colonel made all necessary inquiries, and reported 
the matter to the Commander-in-chief, who at once 
appointed Murphy custodian of the Memorial Gar- 
dens. Here he may be seen, in the balmy forenoons 
of the cold weather, sauntering about in a pith 
helmet and linen jacket ; a decent little Irishman, 
very ready to give a feeling and intelligent account 
of what took place under his immediate observation, 
and insisting much on the fact that he and the 
gunner, unable to speak a syllable of " Moors," 
would have been helpless but for the knowledge of 
Hindostanee possessed by the sepoy officers. He 



IV THE TREACHERY 209 

retains a lively impression of the eagerness with 
which the English privates whom they encountered 
on the Allahabad highway contributed their allow- 
ances of liquor to treat the men who had not 
tasted beer for eight summer weeks. He points 
out the stone beneath which reposes poor Sullivan, 
who died of fatigue and debility, taking the form of 
cholera, within a fortnight of his restoration to 
safety. Delafosse lived once more to play the man, 
fighting under Chamberlain, in the passes of the 
Hindoo Koosh : and Thomson to compose the story of 
what he had seen and undergone, so told that it may 
be read by a Christian without horror, and by an 
educated person'without disgust. He was of opinion 
that a soldier who had performed his duty should 
not stoop to the vocabulary of a hangman. This 
man, scarred from head to heel with sepoy bullets, — 
who had carried his life in his hand for months to- 
gether, — who had lost friends, possessions, and health 
in the frightful meUe, — could still write like a modest 
and tolerant gentleman: while officers, to whom the 
rebellion had brought nothing except promotion and 
an opportunity for distinction, were declaiming and 
printing about battues, and fine bags, and tucking 
up niggers, and polishing off twenty brace of 
Pandies. 

At five in the evening on the twenty-eighth of 
June, the Nana held a state review in honour of his 
victory of the preceding day. His force looked 
well on paper, and made a very respectable show 
in the field. There turned out six entire regiments 
of foot, and two of horse; besides strong detach- 
ments from battalions which had been disbanded 



210 CAWNPORE chap. 

at a distance from Cawnpore. The ranks of the 
artillery were perceptibly thinned by three weeks 
of desperate fighting. To them was especially due 
the success of the cause : and they now bore the 
brunt of the rejoicing. Few but zealous, they worked 
their pieces with a will, and fired away their ammu- 
nition as if henceforward there was no occasion for 
keeping any against the day of battle ; as if the 
clubs of villagers and the daggers of banditti might 
safely be trusted to gather up the leavings of the 
sepoys. Bala Rao was welcomed on to the ground 
with seventeen discharges. The Maharaja himself 
at length enjoyed the compliment of the royal 
reception which had been so ardently coveted and so 
strenuously denied. He was greeted on his appear- 
ance by the full sum of twenty-one explosions, each 
bought with a day of carnage. His ears tingling 
at the unaccustomed sensation, he congratulated 
the mutineers on their common triumph, and pro- 
mised to distribute a hundred thousand rupees as 
an instalment of the debt which he owed to the 
army : an announcement that produced a repetition 
of the salute. Then he took his departure : but 
the enthusiasm which he left behind could evaporate 
only in a wholesale expenditure of Government 
powder. The nephew of the Nana, and his brother 
Baba Bhut, were each honoured with seventeen 
reports. Bala, who was deservedly a favourite with 
that gang of disciplined assassins, came in for a 
second bout of eleven guns : while Jwala Pershad 
and Tantia Topee got the same number apiece. 
This closed the proceedings : during which Tantia, 
whose mind had decidedly a practical cast, was better 



IV THE TREACHERY 211 

employed than in listening to an idle cannonade. 
He was closeted with a man of business named 
Dabeedeen, liquidating accounts with the owners 
of the flotilla which had been sunk or burned. 
Between four and five thousand rupees were paid 
over as compensation for the boats ; and fifty pounds 
were put aside to remunerate the bargemen for their 
share in the operations. It was afterwards asserted 
that Dabeedeen took undue precautions to avoid 
cheating himself in the transaction. 

On the morrow, some boys loitering about on the 
Oude side of the river came upon an English officer 
skulking in a ravine. He was of tall stature, and 
about forty years old, with a bit of sacking twisted 
round his waist, but otherwise naked. The children 
imparted their discovery to the peasants of an 
adjoining hamlet, who took the fugitive to their 
headman. The unhappy gentleman did not speak 
any native language, and could only point towards 
the east with an imploring gesture, and pronounce 
the word " Lucknow." They gave him sugar, which 
he ate up greedily with both hands, and so afforded 
a bystander an opportunity for observing that he 
bore the mark of a ring fresh on his finger. Touched 
by the contrast of his fallen state, these good people 
showed a disposition to do what they could for his 
preservation : but just then some landowners of the 
neighbourhood arrived at the head of a numerous 
array, and prevailed over these benevolent intentions 
by threats of present violence and future punish- 
ment. A short while afterwards, an ex-clerk of the 
commissariat department met fifty or sixty fellows 
" with drawn sabres and lighted matches, bringing 



212 CAWNPORE chap. 

" along a Sahib bound." They halted under a grove 
which stood near the chapel of ease, and sent one 
of their party to fetch the Nana. In his stead came 
Baba Bhut, and, in the name of his brother, bade 
them kill their prisoner. To this they answered : 
" Put weapons into his hand, and let him strike us, 
" and then we will strike in return : but we will not 
"slay him thus." Some troopers of the Second 
Cavalry, who happened to be in attendance, had a 
less nice theory of honour. Three-quarters of an 
hour subsequently, while the clerk was performing 
his ablutions, the corpse was thrown into the 
Ganges, gashed all over with sword-cuts. 

All the night of the twenty-ninth our people who 
had been captured at Nuzzufgur by Baboo Ram 
Bux were slowly remounting the stream. As it 
grew light they began to recognize objects and places 
which they had trusted never again to behold : and, 
two hours before noon, the doomed boat-load lay-to 
at the landing-place whence they had set forth, to 
return thus after three such days as had not repaid 
them for the trouble of making their escape. What 
ensued an Englishman would willingly tell in phrases 
not his own. The following account was taken from 
the lips of a native spy, and is supported by a mass 
of evidence. The mention of General Wheeler is, 
of course, inaccurate. 

" There were brought back," says the man, " sixty 
" Sahibs, twenty-five Mem Sahibs, and four children. 
" The Nana ordered the Sahibs to be separated from 
"the Mem Sahibs, and shot by the First Bengal 
" Native Infantry. But they said, ' We will not shoot 
" ' Wheeler Sahib, who has made our regiment's name 



i( ( 



[V THE TREACHERY 213 

' ' great, and whose son is our own Quartermaster. 
' ' Neither will we kill the Sahib people. Put them 
in prison.' Then said the Nadiree regiment : 
" ' What word is this ? Put them in prison ? We 
" ' will kill the males.' So the Sahibs were seated 
" on the ground : and two companies of the Nadiree 
" regiment stood with their muskets, ready to fire. 
''Then said one of the Mem Sahibs, the doctor's 
"wife: (What doctor? How should I know?) 'I 
"'will not leave my husband. If he must die, I 
'"will die with him.' So she ran, and sat down 
" behind her husband, clasping him round the waist. 
" Directly she said this, the other Mem Sahibs said : 
" ' We also will die with our husbands.' And they 
"all sat down, each by her husband. Then their 
" husbands said : ' Go back ; ' but they would not. 
"Whereupon the Nana ordered his soldiers; and 
"they, going in, pulled them away forcibly. But 
"they could not pull away the doctor's wife, who 
"there remained. Then the Padre called out to 
"the Nana, and requested leave to read prayers 
" before they died." (This Padre was Captain Sep- 
pings, with his broken arm. The doctor's wife, good 
soul, is known to have been Mrs. Boyes.) " The 
"Nana granted it, and the Padre's hands were 
"loosened so far as to enable him to take a small 
"book from his pocket, with which he read. But 
" all this time one of the Sahibs, who was shot in the 
" arm, kept crying out to the sepoys : ' If you mean 
" ' to kill us, why don't you set about it quickly and 
"'have the work done?' After the Padre had read 
"a few prayers, he shut the book, and the Sahibs 
"shook hands all round. Then the sepoys fired. 



214 CAWNPORE chap. 

"One Sahib rolled one way, one another, as they 
" sat. But they were not dead : only wounded. 
"Bo they went in, and finished them off with 
" swords." 

Here is a thing which was actually done on the 
last Tuesday of June, eight years back from the 
present date. Three months before, these people 
were passing an existence no more eventful, and 
apparently no less secure, than the career of a 
county-court judge, or a military man quartered at 
Sheffield or Colchester. They laid their plans for 
the Meerut race-meeting and the biennial trip to a 
Himalayan station with a confidence equal to that 
with which a home-staying public servant anticipates 
the cup-day at Ascot, and the Alpine pass which 
he is going to discover in September. In April 
Cawnpore society was lamenting the departure of 
one period of cold weather, and looking forward 
to the arrival of another; but, ere the rains had 
well set in, it had come to this, that the last batch 
of English officers were lying stiff and stark on the 
parade-ground, in front of the building where their 
widows and orphans were enduring a brief imprison- 
ment for life. 

The number of captives had yet to receive a final 
addition. At the station at Futtehgur, which was 
situated about seventy miles up the river from 
Cawnpore, some hundred and eighty English people 
of every age and profession were alive when the 
month of June commenced. The cantonments were 
occupied by the Tenth Native Infantiy, under the 
command of Colonel Smith, a man distinguished by 
courage so closely allied with rashness, and firmness 



IV THE TREACHERY 215 

so nearly akin to obstinacy, that the European 
residents could not have fared worse had they been 
under the charge of a waverer or a coward. He was 
a zealous adherent of that sect among the Bengal 
officers which worshipped the sepoy. A willing- 
martyr to the creed that he professed, his devotion 
would have excused his fanaticism, had he been the 
only victim : but no personal calamity can atone for 
pedantry which staked and lost nine score English 
souls on the truth of the axiom that a mutineer was 
still docile and affectionate until he could be proved 
a murderer. 

During the latter half of May successive tidings of 
massacre, insurrection, and, finally, of an approach- 
ing rebel force, excited the fears of our countrymen, 
and the impious hopes of the soldiery : as turbulent 
a set of scamps as any in Northern India. At length 
Mr. Probyn, the magistrate of that district, Avhose 
acute discernment, if left to itself, would have saved 
a large asset of life from the wreck of our fortunes, 
took measures for evacuating Futtehgur before the 
extreme crisis. He put himself into communication 
with Hurdeo Bux, a loyal noble whose estates lay 
on the left bank, and obtained an escort of fifty 
picked men and the offer of an asylum. At mid- 
night, between the third and fourth of June, more 
than a hundred of the English inhabitants started 
down the river in a fleet of twelve or thirteen boats, 
laden with baggage, merchandise, furniture, and an 
ample store of provisions. Colonel Smith was not a 
little disgusted that so many peoj^le should combine 
to put a slight upon his pet battalion ; but consoled 
himself with the reflection that time and the issue 



216 CAWNPOKE lhai\ 

would judge between the sepoys and their defamers. 
The fugitives comprised the merchants of the place, 
and the planters of the vicinity ; the civilians, mis- 
sionaries, clerks, craftsmen, and pensioners ; together 
with at least forty women, several nurseries of 
children, and a multitude of native domestics. They 
anchored for refreshment after accomplishing a stage 
of four leagues, and, before breakfast was finished, 
were joined by certain officers of the Tenth, who 
announced that the regiment had mutinied on parade, 
and that all was over at Futtehgur. The expedition 
proceeded on its way, under a desultory fire of mus- 
ketry from the country people, who were for the 
most part hostile to our cause. Next morning 
arrived the bailiff of Hurdeo Bux, who brought 
Probyn an invitation from his master to take refuge 
in his fort of Dhurrumpore. It was resolved to 
split the party. The magistrate, with forty others, 
accepted the proffered hospitality: while three of 
the most roomy vessels, containing nineteen men, 
twenty-three women, and twenty-six children, pushed 
forwards in the direction of Cawnpore. 

And they reached their destination. On the 
evening of the ninth of June the little squadron 
was brought-to on a sand-bank a few furlongs above 
Nawabgunge, the north-west suburb of Cawnpore. 
Here they abode forty-eight hours, listening to the 
ceaseless cannonade which pealed along the stream 
from the south. Then they sent a messenger bearing 
a request for permission to pass on their way : the 
answer to which was brought by a horde of muti- 
neers, who had no sooner appeared in view than the 
boatmen set the thatch alight, and fell with blud- 



IV THE TREACHERY 217 

geons and sabres upon the passengers, who were 
taking their afternoon tea, and who now threw them- 
selves over the bulwarks, and sought concealment in 
a patch of high grass. But their cover was fired by 
the rebel guns ; two ladies and a child were scorched 
or suffocated to death ; and the rest of the company 
fell into the hands of the troopers of the Second 
Cavalry, to those esprit de corps this one-sided 
work was more suited than the dubious contest 
which was rascinff around our intrenchment. The 
captives were made fast to a long rope, and marched 
as far as ladies with bare and bleeding feet could 
carry the babies and drag along the children : for 
by this time all their servants had fled, with the 
exception of two ayahs and a few menials of the 
very lowest order. Here, as elsewhere, fortitude 
and fidelity were in inverse proportion to dignity of 
caste. Our people spent the night supperless, on 
the spot where they had halted; and at daybreak, 
after breakfasting on a mouthful of water apiece, 
were distributed among sixteen bullock carts, and 
conveyed into the presence of the Nana: to whom 
they pointed out the folly of which he would be 
guilty if he indulged himself in wanton and indis- 
criminate murder. It was no easy task, they bade 
him reflect, to empty Europe of Europeans. He is 
said to have been inclined to mercy : but Bala Rao, 
who, if there was a choice between the brothers, 
seems to have been the blackest villain of the three, 
made such an outcry that the Nana stifled his 
nascent humanity in order to prevent the scandal 
of a family quarrel. The ladies and the little ones 
received orders to seat themselves on the ground ; 



218 CAWNPORE 



dHAP*. 



and the gentlemen, with th'eir hands tied behind 
them, were drawn up as a rear rank. The Second 
Cavahy had soon another victory to inscribe upon 
their standards. " I witnessed all this with my own 
"eyes," says a Hindoo nurse, who, while they were 
both above the soil, would not lose sight of her dear 
young charge : " for I was sitting about thirty paces 
" on one side. Two pits were dug, and .all the bodies 
" thrown in. The Nana was not present. May God 
" take vengeance on him, and on these Avicked 
" men." 

Nanukchund notes in his diary that " reports of 
" guns were heard from the direction of Nawabgunge. 
" A little after twelve A.M. two dead bodies of Euro- 
'* peans were seen floating down the Ganges ; and 
" sepoys were seen in a boat coming down behind 
" these 'corpses and firing off their muskets as they 
" came." Next day he found occasion to seek a 
retreat in a village which lay at some distance uj) 
the river. " I perceived," he writes, " bodies of 
" ladies and gentlemen lying along the banks of the 
" Ganges. I cannot describe the grief I felt at this 
" sight. The corpses could not float down from the 
" shallowness of the river. I saw three boats and a 
" barge which had been burnt by the rebels. I ques- 
" tioned the people of the place, and learned that 
" wine and other articles of merchandise were in the 
" boats, but the boatmen had plundered the liquors, 
" and, when drunk, cut down the gentlemen." 

Soon after, "a body of troopers from the Nana 
" came to seize me, and surrounded the house where 
" I was, but I was saved from the hands of these 
" ruffians, and kept in concealment in a garden. At 



IV THE TREACHERY 219 

" nightfall the gardener sent four men with me, and 
" thus I managed to reach the shore. It was not, 
" however, my fate to find a boat, and I resolved to 
" drown myself in the river, as I thought it better to 
" die than to fall into the hands of so cruel a foe. 
" After midnight I left the garden. The first ford I 
" came to had water up to the waist only, and it was 
" moonlight : so I waded across, and reached the 
" next channel. There I saw the corpses of the 
"^Europeans whom the boatmen had slain when 
" drunk : I cannot tell the exact number of bodies, 
" but they extended here and there about a mile. 
" I saw three dead young ladies. They all were 
" dressed, but the low caste people had commenced 
" to take off their clothes ; and some had been torn 
" by animals. Portions of property, books, and 
" papers, belonging to the plundered boats, were 
" also strewn about the shores. These drunken 
" boatmen were armed, some with clubs, some with 
" weapons ; and they were running about the woods 
" like wild men. I cannot describe the terror which 
" seized me at that moment. How I sighed for the 
" British rule ! I was trembling with fear, and knew 
" not where I was going. On reaching the opposite 
" bank I was senseless for four hours." 

Meanwhile at Futtehgur was being played an 
unique tragi-comedy. On the fourth of June, 
during morning parade, twenty thousand pounds' 
worth of Government silver was in course of removal 
from the treasury to the fort. This mark of dis- 
trust, coming close upon the departure of the 
flotilla, proved too much for the sensibility of these 
military Brahmins ; a number of whom stepped out 



220 CAWNPORE chap. 

from the ranks, surrounded the carts, and insisted 
that the money should be taken to their own 
quarters. Colonel Smith and the Adjutant came 
forward and expostulated with the insurgents ; but 
they were pushed up against the wall, and kept 
within a semi-circle of levelled bayonets until the 
cash was safely deposited in the middle of the 
sepoy lines. These proceedings caused a slight 
unpleasantness, which did not wholly disappear until 
the troops had been gratified with an advance of 
two months' pay, a promise of six months' extra 
allowances, and an assurance that the treasure 
should henceforward be kept on the parade-ground 
under their exclusive custody : inasmuch as the 
Company's property could be nowhere so secure 
as in the guardianship of the Company's soldiers. 
That evening Smith harangued as many of the 
battalion as chose to attend; told them that their 
conduct had been disgraceful, but threw the blame 
on the shoulders of the recruits ; and entreated them 
to believe that he could forgive and forget. He 
then pronounced the regiment faithful and staunch. 
And so the first little difficulty between the Colonel 
and his men had been patched up, and both parties 
were living together on terms of contemptuous 
acquiescence on the one side, and doting credulity 
on the other. 

Such was the state of things which Probyn found 
when, after an interval of four days, he rode into 
the cantonment accompanied by a lieutenant and 
ensign of the Tenth. Immediately upon their 
arrival the Colonel informed the magistrate that 
his services were no longer required, as the district 



IV THE TREACHER^ 221 

was entirely under martial law, and put the two 
subalterns in arrest for having deserted their posts. 
The poor lads represented that they had been driven 
from Futtehgur by the fire of their own companies : 
but this man, whom sepoy steel pointed at his chest 
would not convince of sepoy disaffection, refused 
to accept the word of his officers when it clashed 
with a darling theory. Probyn, who foresaw the 
result, wrote to the Europeans then residing under 
the roof of Hurdeo Bux, stating that in his opinion 
the battalion could not possibly be kept together ; 
and recommending that their host should put his 
fort into a defensible condition, and eno^asfe five 
hundred matchlock-men on the credit of the English 
Government. Feeling that he was useless while in 
the same locality with the Colonel, he shook from 
his feet the dust of the devoted station, and made 
his way back to Dhurrumpore. 

He was followed by a letter from Smith earnestly 
inviting the refugees to leave their new ally, and 
throw themselves into the arms of their natural 
protectors, the native soldiers of the Tenth Regiment. 
He affirmed that there were at least a hundred and 
fifty men upon whom he absolutely relied ; and that, 
if the worst should come to the worst, he could 
with their aid fight his way down to Allahabad. 
The poor creatures, who were very uncomfortably 
lodged, and who regretted the punkahs and musquito- 
curtains, the soda-water and bottled beer of their 
abandoned homes, jumped at the proposition in spite 
of all the logic and eloquence which Probyn could 
bring to bear upon their infatuation. He persuaded 
no one except his own family, and a solitary civilian. 



222 CAWNPOKE chap. 

who had escaped from a slaughter and tumult in 
Rohilcund too narrowly and recently for him to 
care to move again. The rest of the party returned 
to Futtehgur, and reinstated themselves in the good 
graces of the deluded veteran. Before very long, 
they were treated with a specimen of sepoy loyalty. 
On the sixteenth of June the Colonel took measures 
to carry out a capital sentence of the civil courts. 
The soldiery, however, considered that at such a time 
there might be something awkward in the precedent 
of an execution, and intimated that the criminal 
had better be released. Their intimation met with 
prompt obedience. 

The Seetapore mutineers, laden with English booty, 
and reeking with English blood, were now close at 
hand. Their ringleaders despatched a letter to the 
men of the Tenth, calling upon them to murder their 
officers : to which the reply was : " Come. We will 
" not oppose you. We have sworn not to do so : but 
" our vows do not bind you." So little reciprocity of 
affection existed in that indecorous dalliance between 
authority and sedition. On the eighteenth of June 
the troops, eager to fling aside even the pretence of 
submission and the semblance of discipline, broke 
forth into open rebellion ; sacked the public chest ; 
and set up a pretender, whom the event showed to 
be better than a mere puppet. The Europeans shut 
themselves up in the fort, in company with one Kalay 
Khan, the sole representative of the Colonel's hun- 
dred and fifty faithful sepoys. That evening the 
Seetapore mutineers marched into the station, hungry 
for pillage ; and, on discovering an empty treasury, 
vented their rage by killing every man of the Tenth 



IV THE TREACHERY 223 

on whom they could lay hands. In the course of a 
week, however, stimulated by the prospect of a 
liberal bounty, and the co-operation of some power- 
ful Rohilla chieftains, the regiments made uj) their 
differences, and united to exterminate the common 
enemy. For ten days and nights five-and-thirty of 
our countrymen maintained against as many hundred 
assailants a rambling tumble-down old earthwork 
extending over a space of twenty acres. They fired 
bags of screws and scrap-iron for grape, and the 
heads of sledge-hammers for round-shot. They re- 
pulsed three general assaults. They lived amidst an 
atmosphere alive with bullets and flying splinters, 
and dim with the smoke of blazing houses and ex- 
ploding mines. At length, when the besiegers were 
gradually but surely blowing their way through the 
rampart, the defenders took to their boats, and 
dropped down the current, encumbered by thrice 
their own number of women, children, and invalids. 
The rest is soon told. The river was low : the 
pursuit hot and persistent. The barges grounded; 
and were got off; and grounded for the last time. 
The crews waded ashore to drive away the hostile 
sharpshooters : and some were borne back dying ; 
and some never stirred from the spot where they 
fell. Vessels hove in view, unwarlike in their ex- 
ternal aspect ; but which, as they ran alongside, 
proved to be crammed with swordsmen and mus- 
keteers. And then ensued mad confusion, and pro- 
miscuous butchery, and suicide that did not merit 
the name. On the tenth evening of July, after losing 
a life for every mile of the voyage, the expedition 
got as far as Nawabgunge, but no farther. The 



224 CAWNPOEE chap, iv 

ladies helped to swell the throng of prisoners, and 
their husbands were sent whither the men of the 
Cawnpore garrison had gone before. Three only 
were spared upon their engaging to bring about that 
the citadel of Allahabad should be made over to the 
rebellion. The Nana had reason for his self-denial. 
It was worth his while to forego any gratification to 
purchase security in the southern quarter. That was 
the direction in which was brewing the storm of 
retribution and reconquest. 



CHAPTER V 

THE MASSACRE 

AND now Seereek Dhoondoo Punth purposed in 
the face of all India to invest himself with 
the ensigns and the titles of royalty. The contest 
had been fought out. The prize lay ready to his 
grasp. But it was no light matter to fix upon the 
auspicious hour when the Mahratta might take pos- 
session of the kingdom that he had carved out with 
his blade from the very heart of the dominions held 
by the alien race which had despoiled his sire. The 
soothsayers were consulted on this momentous point : 
but they were forestalled in their office by Dabeedeen, 
the individual who acted as agent for Tantia Topee 
in his dealings with the boatmen; and who now, 
stimulated by his success in that transaction, aspired 
to try his hand at divination. With the audacity of 
an amateur he at once named five in the evening of 
the thirtieth June as the season when, in accord- 
ance with the will of heaven, the Maharaja should 
proceed to Bithoor for the purpose of assuming his 
kingly functions. There must have been consider- 
able discontent among the members of the Sacred 
College when they learned that this volunteer augur 
had been rewarded with a fee of five hundred rupees, 

Q 



226 CAWNPORE chap. 

and a horse on which to attend the ceremony. The 
Nana set forth, accompanied by Bala Rao, and in 
the com'se of the next day took his seat as Peishwa 
on the paternal throne. The consecration mark was 
affixed to his forehead amidst the roar of guns, and 
the acclamations of a crowd composed chiefly of 
townsmen who had repaired thither to surrender in 
the shape of an honorary gift such of their valuables 
as had not already passed by a more direct channel 
into the coffers of the usurper. 

Some there were, however, who on this august 
occasion might rejoice with unfeigned rapture. The 
sepoys were gladdened by an announcement that a 
large quantity of gold had been sent to the Magazine, 
and would there be fashioned into decorations for 
the ankles of those warriors who had borne the 
burden and heat of the great struggle. The Ganges 
Canal was bestowed as a perquisite upon Azimoolah. 
It is difficult to conceive what would have been the 
indignation of the Directors who sat in Leadenhall 
Street during the years of the Crimean War, had they 
been told that the very equivocal native prince who 
was for ever hanging about the India House, would 
one day become sole proprietor of the gigantic con- 
cern which grew dearer to their hearts the more it 
cost, the less it yielded. 

That night the city of Cawnpore was illuminated, 
and the following proclamation was posted in all 
places of general resort : 

" As by the kindness of God and the good fortune 
" of the Emperor all the Christians who were at 
" Delhi, Poonah, Sattara, and other places, and even 
" those five thousand European soldiers who went in 



V THE MASSACEE 227 

" disguise into the former city and were discovered, 
"are destroyed and sent to hell by the pious and 
" sagacious troops, who are firm in their religion ; 
" and as they have been all conquered by the present 
" Government, and as no trace of them is left in 
" these places, it is the duty of all the subjects and 
"servants of the Government to rejoice at the de- 
"lightful intelligence, and carry on their respective 
"work with comfort and ease. 

"As by the bounty of the glorious Almighty and 
"the enemy-destroying fortune of the Emperor the 
"yellow-faced and narrow-minded people have been 
" sent to hell, and Cawnpore has been conquered, it 
"is necessary that all the subjects and landowners 
" should be as obedient to the present Government 
" as they have been to the former one ; that all 
"the Government servants should promptly and 
"cheerfully engage their whole mind in executing 
" the orders of the Government ; that it is the in- 
" cumbent duty of all the peasants and landed pro- 
" prietors of every district to rejoice at the thought 
"that the Christians have been sent to hell, and 
" both the Hindoo and Mohammedan religions have 
" been confirmed ; and that they should as usual be 
" obedient to the authorities of the Government, and 
"never suffer any complaint against themselves to 
" reach to the ears of the higher authority." 

On the first of July the prisoners were removed 
from the Savada Hall to a small building north of 
the canal, situated between the black city and the 
Ganges. It was their final change of lodgings. To 
this day they occupy those premises on a lease which 
no man may dispute. This humble dwelling, the 



228 CAWNPORE chap. 

residence of some poor quill-driver, Hindoo or half- 
caste, as the case may be, had long stood amidst 
a group of sightly villas and edifices of social resort, 
unnoticed except by a casual sanitary commissioner, 
and distinguished only by a numeral in the map 
of the Ordnance Survey. It has since been known 
in India as the Beebeegur, or House of the Ladies ; 
in England as the House of the Massacre. It com- 
prised two principal rooms, each twenty feet by ten, 
certain windowless closets intended for the use of 
native domestics, and an open court some fifteen 
yards square. Here, during a fortnight of the 
Eastern summer, were penned two hundred and six 
persons of European extraction : for the most part 
women and children of gentle birth. The grown 
men were but five in number : the three gentlemen 
of Futtehgur, who are supposed to have been Mr. 
Thornhill, the judge, and Colonels Smith and Goldie : 
together with Mr. Edward Greenway, and his son 
Thomas. 

If the various degrees of wretchedness are to be 
estimated by the faculty for suffering contained in 
the victim, then were these ladies of all women the 
most miserable. Few or none amongst them had 
been aware that in some corner of the mansion 
beneath whose roof their happier days were passed, 
there existed such foul holes as those in which they 
now lay panting by the score. It was much if they 
had cared to hazard a supposition that " the servants 
slept somewhere about the compound." They had 
neither furniture, nor bedding, nor straw; nothing 
but coarse and hard bamboo matting, unless they 
preferred a smoother couch upon the bare floor. 



V THE MASSACRE 229 

They fed sparely on cakes of unleavened dough, and 
lentil-porridge dished up in earthen pans without 
spoon or plate. There was some talk of meat on 
Sundays, but it never came to anything. Once the 
children got a little milk. The same day the head 
bearer of Colonel Williams came to pay his respects 
to the daughter who was the sole survivor of the 
officer's household. "I could not," he says, "get 
" near the ladies on account of the sentries, but saw 
" that food was being distributed to them. It con- 
"sisted of native bread and milk. I remonstrated 
" with a soldier who had formerly served under my 
'' master, and begged of him to supply with better 
" food people who had lived in a very different way. 
" He gave me eight annas " [twelvepence] " to go 
"to the bazaar and buy some sweetmeats. I did 
" so ; and on my return Miss Georgiana and a 
" married lady came into the verandah to meet me. 
"Miss Georgiana repeated to me her mothers in- 
" junctions about my going to her brother. I gave 
" them the sweetmeats, and had little time to speak 
" to them, for, seeing me, the other ladies came out 
" into the verandah : on which the sentries turned 
"me out." 

The matron of these female prisoners, whom it 
took so little to keep in order, was a woman described 
as tall ; of a fair complexion ; twenty-eight or thirty 
years in age ; but with a few grey hairs. She went 
bv the nickname of " the Beoum," and her character 
was no better than could be looked for in a waiting- 
maid of the courtesan who then ruled the circle of 
the Nana. She superintended a staff of sweepers, 
who furnished the captives with their food. The 



230 CAWNPORE chap. 

attendance of such debased menials was in itself 
tlie most ignominious affront which Oriental malice 
could invent : and even these were provided exclu- 
sively for the humiliation of our countrywomen, 
and might do nothing for their comfort. A young 
Brahmin, who chanced to look over the fence of 
the inclosure, saw some ladies washing their own 
dirty linen. With the irrepressible loquacity of a 
Hindoo he began asking some strangers who were 
standing by whether there was no washerman who 
would undertake to do for the Mem Sahibs : an ill- 
timed curiosity which procured him a slap on the 
face and a night in the guard-room. 

Seventy-five paces from the abode where our people 
were confined stood an hotel owned by a Mohammedan 
proprietor : an erection of considerable size, daubed 
with bright yellow paint. Allured, probably, by the 
gaudiness of colour, an attraction which no genuine 
native can resist, the Nana had selected this build- 
ing as his head-quarters. A couple of guns were 
planted at the entrance of the compound, and a 
strong detachment of his retainers kept guard under 
the portico. Two spacious centre rooms were re- 
served for the Maharaja's public receptions. One of 
the wings was set apart for the duties of the kitchen 
and the altar : and, side by side with religion, cooking 
went merrily on through every hour of the twenty- 
four. In the other Dhoondoo Punth lived from day 
to day in a perpetual round of sensuality, amidst a 
choice coterie of priests, pandars, ministers, and 
minions. The reigning beauty of the fortnight was 
one Oula or Adala. She was the Thais on whose 
breast sunk the vanquished victor, oppressed with 



V THE MASSACRE 23i 

brandy and such love as animates a middle-aged 
Eastern debauchee. She is said to have counted 
by hundreds of thousands the rupees which were 
lavished on her by the affection and vanity of her 
Alexander: and could well afford to spare one of 
her suite to look after the prisoners for the fraction 
of time during which they were likely to need her 
services. Every night there was an entertainment 
of music, dancing, and pantomime. The hit of the 
evening was made b}^ a buffoon who took off midst 
shouts of laughter the stiff carriage of an English 
officer. 

The noise of this unhallowed revelry was plainly 
audible to the captives in the adjoining house ; and, 
as they crowded round the windows to catch the 
breeze which sprang up at sunset, the glare of 
torches and the strains of barbarous melody might 
remind them of the period when he who was now 
arbiter of their existence thought himself privileged 
if he could induce them to honour with a half- 
disdainful acceptance the hospitality of Bithoor. 
They sometimes got a nearer view of the festivities. 
The Begum daily took across two ladies to the 
Nana's stables, where they were set down to grind 
corn at a hand-mill for the space of several hours. 
They generally contrived to bring back a pocketful 
of flour for the children. 

Hardship, heat, wounds, and want of space and 
proper nourishment released many from their bond- 
age before the season marked out by Azimoolah 
for a jail delivery such as the world had seldom wit- 
nessed. A native doctor, himself a prisoner, has left 
a list of deaths which occurred between the seventh 



2.'52 CAWNPORE cha1\ 

and the fifteenth of the month. Within these eight 
days, of which one was incomplete, as will be seen 
by those who read on, there succmnbed to cholera 
and dysentery eighteen women, seven children, and 
a Hindoo nurse. There is a touching little entry 
which deserves notice. In the column headed 
"Names" appear the words "eck baba" (one 
baby) : under that marked " disease " is written " ap 
se " (of itself). Dying by threes and fours of fright- 
ful maladies, the designations of which they hardly 
knew; trying to eat nauseous and unwonted food, 
and to sleep upon a bed of boards; tormented by 
flies, and musquitoes, and dirt, and prickly heat, and 
all the lesser evils that aggravate and keep for ever 
fresh the consciousness of a great misfortune ; doing 
for the murderer of their dearest ones that labour 
which in Asia has always been the distinctive sign 
and badge of slavery; to such reality of woe had 
been reduced these beine^s for whom nothing had 
formerly been too dainty and well appointed ; whose 
idea of peril had once been derived from romances ; 
and who had been acquainted with destitution only 
through tracts and the reports of charitable insti- 
tutions. 

The number of caj)tives diminished so fast that 
the Nana began to fear lest he should soon have 
no hostages wherewith to provide against the conse- 
quences of a possible reverse. They Avere accord- 
ingly driven twice a day into the verandah, and 
forced to sit there until they had inhaled as much 
fresh air as, in the judgment of the Begum, would 
support an English constitution for the space of 
twelve hours. This substitute for the morning gallop 



V THE MASSACRE 233 

and the evening promenade was very distasteful to 
our ladies, on account of the idlers who came to 
stare, and remark how odd a Lady Sahib looked 
when neither on horseback nor in her carriage. 
The poor creatures were overheard whispering 
among themselves that the British never used their 
prisoners thus. 

It is probable that from this circumstance origin- 
ated the rumour concerning European females who 
had been publicly maltreated in the bazaar. Two 
or three sentences must here be written upon those 
fables which it is our misfortune that we once 
believed, and our shame if we ever stoop to repeat. 
Delhi, Cawnpore, and Futtehgur were the three 
stations in which any considerable multitude of our 
countrywomen were placed under the disposal of the 
mutineers. With regard to the two latter places, if 
we except one single case of abduction, it is abso- 
lutely certain that our ladies died without mention, 
and, we may confidently hope, without apprehension 
of dishonour. Those revolting stories which ac- 
companied to Southampton the first tidings of the 
tumult at Delhi may all be traced to some gossip 
regarding the fate of Miss Jennings, the daughter of 
the chaplain, and her friend, Miss Clifford. It is 
now ascertained beyond all question that these girls 
were sitting in an upper room of the palace gateway, 
when they heard on the stairs a rush of footsteps 
and a clattering of scabbards, and were cut down 
dead as they rose from tlieir chairs to learn the 
cause of this stranp-e intrusion. 

o 

Some, who love to attribute every event to the 
special interposition of Providence, have insisted that 



234 CAWNPOBE chap. 

nothing short of fabricated indignities, and tales of 
mutilation equally untrue and more easily disproved, 
could have kindled the explosion of wrath and pity 
which sent forth by myriads the youth of England 
again to subdue Hindostan beneath a Christian yoke. 
Piety, unwilling to pronounce authoritatively on such 
a matter, will be loth to imagine that God provoked 
men to utter and to credit lies for the furtherance of 
any purpose which could conduce to His glory. As 
must ever be in the order of things by Him deter- 
mined, the evil seed produced evil fruit. Grapes 
came not of those thorns, nor figs of those thistles. 
The murder of a hundred families, the ruin of a 
thousand homesteads, were incentives capable of 
exalting our national enthusiasm to the requisite 
pitch without the aid of exaggeration or invention. 
Those hateful falsehoods served but to evoke from 
the depths of our nature the sombre and ferocious 
instincts which religion and civilization can never 
wholly eradicate. To their account unhappy India 
may charge most of the innocent blood that was 
spilt and the bad blood that remains. 

It was not long before the usurper began to 
experience the proverbial uneasiness of a crowned 
head. At no time a favourite with the Cawnpore 
population, he now was cordially detested by all 
the respectable inhabitants ; who, after his downfall, 
testified their hatred by refusing to pronounce his 
name without the addition of some disparaging 
epithet. The majestic appellations of Maharaja and 
Peishwa were at once cut down to " Nana soor," 
"that pig of a Nana:" and this was the mildest 
and the most decent of all his agnomina, with the 



V THE MASSACRE 235 

exception, perhaps, of "budmasli," which answers as 
nearly as possible to the French coqidn. " That 
great budmash the Nana," occurs in the perora- 
tion of one of Nanukchund's outbursts of Hindoo 
eloquence. For the present, however, the towns- 
people evinced their ill-will by a tacit but very effec- 
tive opposition to the new regime. His requisitions 
of money and supplies met with no response; and 
he could procure nothing except by open force, 
which he was not slow to employ. The city had, 
indeed, little motive to love him or the state of 
things which he represented. A Mohammedan 
author describes the aspect of a locality where the 
rebellion had obtained the ascendency in these 
graphic words : — '' Since the day of my arrival I never 
" found the bazaar open, unless it were a few poor 
" shops. The shopkeepers and the citizens are 
" extremely sorry for losing their safety, and curse 
" the mutineers from morning to evening. The 
" people and the workmen starve, and the widows 
" cry in their huts." 

The class who had most cause to pray for the 
return of order were the natives of Bengal Proper, 
then settled in the Upper Provinces for purposes 
of commerce. Impoverished, suspected, menaced, 
and outraged, they were conscious that neither life, 
limb, nor liberty were worth a fortnight's purchase. 
Many a rich Bengalee within the borders of the 
insurrection sat all day behind closed blinds, with a 
pistol in his girdle, a bag of jewels in his turban, 
and a horse ready saddled at the back door of his 
garden. And it was not without reason that these 
men suffered so cruelly : for they were only less 



236 CAWNPOKE chap. 

loyal than the English themselves. The wealthy, 
industrious, and effeminate denizens of Lower Bengal 
had no desire to see the many-headed and irrational 
despotism of a Praetorian guard substituted for the 
mild and regular sway of old John Company. The 
conduct of the soldiery rendered them exceedingly 
uncomfortable and not a little indignant : and they 
lost no opportunity of wreaking their spite upon the 
turbulent mercenaries who would not allow honest 
folk to go about their business in peace. The 
sepoys who mutinied at Chittagong and Dacca, both 
of which stations lie within the limits of Bengal, 
met with such hostility from the country-jDeople that 
they gave up all thoughts of moving on Calcutta, 
and endeavoured to make their way into Assam. 
Few ever reached the frontier. They literally rotted 
away in the jungle. Some died of starvation : some 
of fever and ague. The foragers were knocked on 
the head by the peasantry, skilled, like all Hindoo 
villagers, in the j)lay of the quarter-staff. The 
stragglers were carried off by wild animals which 
swarm amidst the swamps and forests that fringe 
the great rivers of Eastern India. At length, driven 
into a corner, they one morning cut the throats 
of the women who had hitherto accompanied their 
march, and dispersed into the wilderness, to re- 
appear not even on the gallows. They could not 
have fared worse amidst the moors of Yorkshire or 
Northumberland . 

July had not well set in before the insurgents 
of Cawnpore showed symptoms that marked the 
wilfulness and inconstancy of soldiers who have 
once forgotten their duty. Idleness bred discon- 



V THE MASSACRE 237 

tent, and discontent speedily ri23ened into sedition. 
The honeymoon had not yet drawn to a close, and 
already this unnatural connection between the Nana 
and the army was distasteful to the stronger of 
the contracting parties. Regiments which had re- 
fused to obey such men as Ewart and Delafosse 
were not likely to entertain any very profound 
reverence for an effete Hindoo rake. The Peishwa 
evinced an inclination to enjoy for a while the 
contemplation of his recent dignity in the retire- 
ment of Bithoor : but the troops had no notion of 
letting their paymaster out of sight, and brought 
him back into their midst by violence which they 
hardly cared to disguise beneath the semblance of 
respect. On the third of the month a donation 
was distributed among their ranks, and accepted 
with anything but gratitude. Few got as much as, 
in their own opinion, they deserved; and all less 
than they desired. What they had was not in 
a portable form. Government silver proved to be 
an inconvenient burden for the loins ; and, if things 
went ill, it might procure a still more unpleasant 
girdle round the neck. There were disagreeable 
anecdotes current regarding certain gentlemen, late 
of the Company's service, who had been executed 
at Allahabad on the discovery about their persons 
of some new copper coins, which had never issued 
from the Treasury by a regular payment, and which 
they were suspected of having intended to put into 
premature circulation. There accordingly was a 
brisk demand for gold. Azimoolah ordered it to 
be proclaimed in the bazaar by beat of drum that 
bankers should supply the mutineers with mohurs 



238 CAWNPORE chap. 

at a minimum price of twenty-one rupees. The 
Cawnpore exchange, however, had so Httle confi- 
dence in the star of the Maharaja, that these coins 
could not be bought for less than twenty-eight 
rupees, which was an advance of seventy-five per 
cent, on their ordinary price. The sepoys, who 
were not more acquainted than European privates 
with the laws which regulate the money-market, 
and knew only that they had ended by pocketing 
little more than half the cash that they expected, 
were soon talking about a fresh change of masters. 
The Mussulman faction gained ground rapidly and 
surely. Men began to recollect how cleverly the 
Nunhey Nawab had managed his battery without 
any prior experience in gunnery, and drew the con- 
clusion that he might be equally successful if he 
could be bribed by an offer of sovereignty to turn 
his attention towards the rate of discount. 

But military greediness, and Moslem ambition, 
and the jealousy of the nobles, and the enmity 
of the hotio^geoisie ceased ere long to occupy the 
thoughts of the tyrant. These sources of uneasiness 
were absorbed in one great and pressing terror, 
when, at the first doubtful and intermittent, but 
more frequent ever and clearer, came surging up 
from the south-west the fame of the advancing ven- 
geance. Couriers mounted on swift camels were 
sent down the road, and returned with the intel- 
ligence that the British were certainly approaching 
by forced marches, laying down a telegraph as they 
proceeded, and hanging the inhabitants of the 
villages within which were found pieces of the old 
wire. This information naturally produced a strong 



V THE MASSACRE 239 

effect upon men whose crimes were not such as 
to meet with impunity under the new scale of 
penalties that seemed to have been adopted by 
the Sahibs. The consternation was so deep and 
universal that the Nana had recourse to his cus- 
tomary palliative. On the fifth of July he issued 
the following proclamation : — 

" It has come to our notice that some of the 
"city people, having heard the rumours of the 
" arrival of the European troops at Allahabad, are 
" deserting their houses and going out into the 
" districts. Be it therefore proclaimed in each lane 
"and street of the city that regiments of cavalry, 
"and infantry, and batteries have been despatched 
"to check the Europeans either at Allahabad or 
" Futtehpore ; that the people should therefore 
" remain in their houses without any apprehension 
" and engage their minds in carrying on their work." 

This manifesto was probably considered too tame 
and brief for such a crisis. Next day there appeared 
a truly notable state-paper, which, to judge from 
internal evidence, may be attributed to the pen of 
the prime-minister. It is regarded as the master- 
j)iece of that author, and may serve for a model to 
all Governments that undertake to enlighten the 
public mind by means of an official organ. 

" A traveller just arrived at Cawnpore from Alla- 
" habad states that before the cartridges were dis- 
"tributed a Council was held for the purpose of 
" taking away the religion and rites of the people 
" of Hindostan. The Members of Council came to 
" the conclusion that, as the matter was one affectino- 
" religion, seven or eight thousand Europeans would 



240 CAWNPOEE chap. 

'be required, and it would cost the lives of fifty 
'thousand Hindoos, but that at this price the 
'natives of Hindostan would become Christians. 
' The matter was therefore represented in a despatch 
' to Queen Victoria, who gave her consent. A second 
' Council was then held, at which the English mer- 
' chants were present. It was then resolved to ask 
' for the assistance of a body of European troops 
' equal in number to the native army, so as to 
' insure success when the excitement should be at 
' the highest. When the despatch containing this 
' application was read in England, thirty-five thou- 
'sand Europeans were very rapidly embarked on 
'ships, and started for Hindostan, and intelligence 
' of their despatch reached Calcutta. Then the 
'English in Calcutta issued the order for the dis- 
' tribution of the cartridges, the object of which was 
' to make Hindostan Christian ; as it was thought 
' that the people would come over with the army. 
' The cartridges were smeared with hog and cow's 
' fat. One man who let out the secret was hung, 
' and one imprisoned. 

" Meantime, while they were occupied in carrying 
' out their plan, the ambassadors of the Sultan of 
'Roum" [Turkey] "in London sent word to his 
' sovereign that thirty-five thousand Europeans had 
'been despatched to Hindostan to make all the 
' natives Christians. The Sultan (may Allah per- 
' petuate his kingdom !) issued a firman to the 
'Pacha of Egypt, the contents of which are as 
' follows : ' You are conspiring with Queen Victoria. 
' ' If you are guilty of neglect in this matter, what 
' ' kind of face will you be able to show to God ? ' 



V THE MASSACRE 241 

" When this firman of the Sultan of Roum reached 
" the Pacha of Egypt, the Lord of Egypt assembled 
" his army in the city of Alexandria, which is on the 
" road to India, before the Europeans arrived. As 
" soon as the European troops arrived the troops of 
''the Pacha of Egypt began to fire into them with 
"guns on all sides, and sunk all their ships, so 
"that not even a single European escaped. The 
" English in Calcutta, after issuing orders for biting 
" the cartridges, and when these disturbances had 
"reached their height, were looking for the assist- 
" ance of the army from London. But the Almighty 
" by the exercise of His power made an end of them 
" at the very outset. When intelligence of the 
" destruction of the army from London arrived, the 
" Governor-General was much grieved and distressed, 
" and beat his head. 

" At eventide he intended murder and plunder. 

" At noon neither had his body a head, nor his head a cover. 

" In one revolution of the blue heavens 

" Neither Nadir remained, nor a follower of Nadir. 

" Done by order of his Grace the Peishwa. 1273 of the Hegira." 

But the onward march of the English was not to 
be checked by quotations from Oordoo poets. It 
behoved that some weapons besides the eloquence 
of Azimoolah and the sign-manual of Dhoondoo 
Punth should be found, and found quickly. The 
rebel chiefs were enjoined to muster their re- 
tainers, and Teeka Sing to beat up the bazaars 
for sepoys. Reluctant and dispirited the truants 
turned out to fight for a sovereign whom they 
were scheming to dethrone, and for plunder which 
had already by some magical process melted away 



242 CAWNPORE chap. 

to half tlie orioinal value. Baba Bliut under- 
took to provide carriage for the stores and ammu- 
nition : and accordingly impounded the conveyances 
of the town, particularly all vehicles formerly the 
property of European gentry : a measure which 
caused no small vexation to the mutineers who had 
been cutting a dash in the buggies that had belonged 
to our subalterns. The merchants received exten- 
sive indents for tents and waterproof great-coats : a 
most essential article of equipment during the first 
weeks of the rainy season. The Ordnance Office 
reported itself to be short of percussion caps : and 
the whole staff of the department was at once set to 
work at converting detonating muskets into match- 
locks. These preparations were completed by the 
ninth of July, on which day Brigadier Jwala Pershad 
left the station in the direction of Allahabad at the 
head of detachments from three regiments of cavalry 
and seven of infantry, together with a strong body 
of feudal militia : in all some thirty-five hundred 
sabres, bayonets, and lances. The column was ac- 
companied by twelve guns of various pattern and 
calibre, which the result of the earliest action 
enabled General Havelock to describe with minute 
accuracy. 

They did well to hurry : for the avenger was 
abroad. Late in May there landed at Calcutta a 
wing of the First Madras Fusiliers, under the com- 
mand of Major Renaud and Lieutenant-Colonel 
Neill : who, after securing an order which enabled 
them to draw upon the Patna Treasury, proceeded 
straight to the terminus situated on the bank of the 
Hooghly facing the capital, with the intention of 



V ' THE MASSACRE 243 

performing the first stretch of their journey by rail. 
A train was on the point of starting ; and the station- 
master, jealous, it may be, to obtain his new line a 
reputation for punctuality, refused to delay until the 
rear-guard could be embarked in the cars. Here- 
upon Neill, an Indian veteran, who during a long- 
absence from home had lost what little reverence he 
ever possessed for the authority of Bradshaw, clapped 
the official under arrest in his own waiting-room, and 
gave the guards and stokers to understand that he 
had constituted himself traffic-manager for the time 
being. Travelling in this high-handed style he 
reached Benares when least expected either by the 
English residents, who were waiting to have their 
throats cut, or by the native force, which was looking 
out for an excuse to mutiny, and which now found a 
pretext in the arrival of Neill. After a rough and 
tumble fight he bundled the insurgents out of the 
place ; quieted the fears of the European popula- 
tion ; and at once began his arrangements for pene- 
trating to Allahabad, where a feeble garrison, closely 
invested by an enormous rebel host, was defending 
a mile and a half of wall with scanty prospect of 
deliverance. 

On the evening of the ninth June he sent on in 
bullock-carts a hundred and seventeen of his people ; 
despatched thirty-six others in a small steamer ; and 
packed himself, with two officers and forty-four men, 
into such staoe-carriao^es as had shafts and axles. 
Posting in the East is never a very expeditious 
method of locomotion ; and at this conjuncture 
every stable along the Grand Trunk Road had been 
plundered more or less thoroughly. But the agents 



244 CAWNPORE ghap. 

of the Dawk Company knew their man : and it may 
safely be asserted that the grooms were less sleepy 
than usual, and the drivers less sulky ; that the 
horses jibbed not quite so pertinaciously, and the 
wheels came off at somewhat wider intervals. No 
promise of treble gratuities from an embryo member 
of Parliament, hurrying up-country in search of 
statistics, ever so surely cut short a stoppage or an 
altercation, as did the rattle of the panels of the 
foremost van, which betokened that Neill Sahib was 
awake, and in another moment would be thrusting 
out his head to ask what the matter was. When 
the animals broke down, strings of peasants were 
harnessed to the traces : and by the afternoon of 
the second day the relieving army, numbering a 
short four dozen of exhausted men, had found their 
way into the beleaguered place. On the following- 
morning the struggle began in earnest, and con- 
tinued for a full week. Successive instalments of 
Fusiliers swarmed in by road and river : while the 
enemy had soon consumed most of their courage and 
all their ball-cartridge, and were reduced, to load 
with morsels of telegraph wire : a device whereby, 
over and above the effect of their fire, they got rid of 
an article the possession of which came under the 
chapter of capital offences in the Criminal Code as 
revised by Colonel Neill. That officer by the nine- 
teenth July had re-conquered the city of Allahabad, 
and cleared the district of insurgents. He now found 
leisure to make some inquiries into the past, which 
resulted in a series of executions : not more than 
the crisis warranted (for, though an austere man, he 
was no savage), but quite numerous enough, in the 



V THE MASSACRE 245 

expressive dialect of the day, to " establish a great 
funk." 

Meanwhile the heat was such as no words can 
adequately describe. The Europeans died of sun- 
stroke at an average rate of two a day. Our troops 
had outstripped their Commissariat, and could get 
neither bread, nor coffee, nor drugs, nor fans, nor 
screens of moistened grass : appliances which, known 
to an English housekeeper as "luxuries" and "com- 
forts," in the estimation of those who have spent 
an Indian June in the tented field merit quite 
another denomination. Unfortunately, though the 
larder and the medicine-chest were empty, the cel- 
lars of Allahabad were only too well furnished. The}' 
were j)illaged by some Sikhs, who, without applying 
for a licence, at once opened a lively trade : selling 
beer, brandy, madeira, and champagne at a uniform 
charge of sixpence the bottle. Cholera soon broke 
out among our poor fellows, living as they did on 
wine and spirits without even a halfpenny-worth of 
bread in a temperature of a hundred and thirty-five 
degrees. In the course of seventy-two hours fort}^ 
deaths occurred in the ranks of the Madras Regiment. 
The Colonel bought up and destroyed the whole 
stock of liquor; ransacked the neighbourhood in 
quest of wholesome provisions ; removed his jDatients 
to the most healthy quarters which he could com- 
mand ; and was repaid by seeing the mysterious 
disease vanish as suddenly as it had appeared, after 
carrying off one out of every nine among his 
soldiers. 

As when a slender rill, ominous to an experienced 
eye, trickles through the crack in an embankment 



246 CAWNPORE chap. 

behind which is gathered an immense weight of 
water, so came along the valley of Ganges this little 
band, the forerunner of a mighty multitude of 
warriors. Every evening brought into Allahabad a 
fresh batch of Englishmen, jaded, indeed, and 
suffering ci^uelly from the climate, but eager to be 
led forward to rescue or revenge. Continental 
authors who descant on the stolidity and insensi- 
bility of the British jorivate might have learned a 
useful lesson could they have overheard the talk of 
those pale and sickly lads. By the last day of June 
Neill judged himself strong enough to detach towards 
Cawnpore two guns and eight hundred men, half of 
whom were Europeans. The column was placed 
under the orders of Major Benaud, who pushed up 
the road, fighting as occasion offered ; tranquillizing 
the country by the very simple expedient of hanging 
everybody who showed signs of insubordination ; 
and using all endeavours to procure information 
concerning the fate of the Cawnpore garrison. On 
the fourth July he was met by a report of the 
capitulation and the massacre. Corroborated, and 
contradicted, and qualified, and again confidently 
affirmed, rumour insensibly matured into undoubted 
fact : but to this day no man ventures to name the 
precise hour when he himself became assured that 
the worst was true. 

With July arrived Brigadier-General Havelock, 
who, after having employed a week in collecting his 
resources, moved northwards from Allahabad with 
six cannon and a thousand English soldiers. That 
was not a joyous expedition. The hearts of all were 
occupied with forebodings of evil which they dared 



V , THE MASSACRE 247 

not shape into words : and the face of creation 
seemed to reflect the universal gloom. To the fancy 
of those who were not incapable of vivid emotion 
even inanimate and irrational nature partook that 
shade of the future that was on every soul. They 
waded in a sea of slush, knee-deep now, and now 
breast-high, while the flood of tropical rain beat 
down from overhead. As far to right and left as 
eye could pierce extended one vast morass : and the 
desolate scene was enlivened by no human sound. 
Nothing was heard save the melancholy croaking 
of the cicalas, mingled with an under hum of count- 
less insects. The air was heavy with the offensive 
odour of lime-trees. There were no indications that 
the column was traversing an inhabited country, 
except the bodies which hung by twos and threes 
from branch and signpost, and the gaunt swine who 
by the roadside were holding their loathsome car- 
nival. After three days of steady toil through the 
mud and the water Havelock was made aware that the 
enemy were ahead, and that Renaud was advancing 
unsupported into the teeth of an overwhelming 
force. Then our troops hastened forward, and made 
one march of five leagues and another of eight 
beneath a blazing sun (for at this point the weather 
cleared, and they lost the protection of the clouds), 
until they caught up the Major and his detachment, 
and finally halted in a state of entire prostration five 
miles from the town of Futtehpore, where Jwala 
Pershad was encamped with all his chivalry. 

It was early morning. Our weary people were 
enjoying their "little breakfast" of tea, that plea- 
santest of Indian meals, when the rebel vanguard 



248 CAWNPORE chap. 

came pouring down the causeway. Havelock, who 
wished earnestly to give his harassed soldiers rest, 
resolved to wait until this ebullition should expend 
itself. But the affair grew serious; and he had 
soon no choice but to accept the challenge and draw 
up his army. In front were the guns, protected b}^ 
a hundred skirmishers armed with that Enfield rifle 
which, then a rarity, is now a familiar object to every 
other household in Great Britain. The Fusiliers and 
the Seventy-eighth Highlanders struggled through 
the swamps on the right. The Sixty-fourth Regiment 
went forward in the centre ; and the Eighty-fourth 
on the left, supported by a battalion of Punjabees. 
The cavalry moved along some firm ground which 
lay on the extreme flank. 

Never was there such a battle. " I might say," 
writes the General, " that in ten minutes the action 
"was decided, for in that short space of time the 
" spirit of the enemy was utterly subdued. The 
" rifle fire, reaching them at an unexpected distance, 
" filled them with dismay ; and when Captain Maude 
" was enabled to push his guns to point-blank range, 
" his surprisingly accurate fire demolished their little 
''remaining confidence. In a moment three guns 
"were abandoned to us on the chauss^e, and the 
" force advanced steadily, driving the enemy before 
"it on every point. Their guns continued to fall 
" into our hands ; and then in succession they were 
" driven from the garden inclosures ; from a strong 
" barricade on the road ; from the town wall ; into 
" and through, out of and beyond the town. Their 
" fire scarcely reached us. Ours, for four hours, 
"allowed them no repose." 



V THE MASSACRE 249 

In fact it was a mere rout : a memorable triumph 
of outraged civilization. The Second Cavalry made 
a flourish which for a while checked our onset : but 
the troopers of that redoubted corps soon had had 
enough of English lead, and felt no appetite for a 
taste of English steel. Accustomed to deal with 
feebler adversaries, they were spoilt for fighting with 
grown men. By noon nothing was to be seen of the 
mutineers within six miles of Futtehpore save their 
dead, their accoutrements, and their whole park of 
artillery. Flying in irretrievable disorder they spread 
everywhere that the Sahibs had come back in strange 
guise ; some draped like women, to remind them 
what manner of wrong they were sworn to requite ; 
others, conspicuous by tall blue caps, who hit their 
mark without being seen to fire. Our list of killed 
and wounded contained not one British name : though 
a dozen or so of Sowars, Jemmadars, and E-usseldars 
made it as incomprehensible to a home reader as an 
Indian bulletin should ever be. But the bloodless 
day was not costless : for twelve of our privates were 
slain outright by the sun. Our irregular horsemen, 
who recognized some comrades in the hostile ranks, 
had flatly refused to charge, and were consequently 
dismounted and disarmed : a precaution that dimin- 
ished our cavalry to a score of volunteers. 

When the Nana learned how his soldiers had con- 
ducted themselves he flew into a violent passion, 
which could be relieved only by vicarious letting of 
blood. After attending at the execution of eight 
ill-fated couriers, who had been intercepted from 
time to time with English despatches in and about 
their persons, he felt sufficiently composed to face 



250 CAWNPORE chap. 

the emergency. Determined to reserve liis own 
sacred self for the supreme venture, he sent into the 
field a Patroclus in the person of Bala Kao, whose 
stake in the cause was indeed no light one. Every 
available mutineer was equipped and marched down 
the road, and the captured pieces were replaced from 
the magazine. On the morrow the Peishwa's brother 
followed his reinforcements, and took up a position 
round a hamlet named Aoung, twenty-two miles 
south of Cawnpore. He found the rebel mind in 
high perturbation. The gossip of the camp-fires ran 
mainly on the disagreeable sensations produced by 
strangulation ; and the disquisitions of certain among 
the sepoys who had witnessed that operation were 
so circumstantial and picturesque that many who 
had come best off in the partition of the spoil doffed 
the remains of their uniforms, and stole away with 
their riches to the seclusion of their native villages. 
The behaviour of those who remained proved that 
the army had rather gained than lost in efficiency 
by the withdrawal of such as had nothing to acquire 
and something to enjoy. 

Their valour w^as soon to be tested. At nine in 
the morning of the fifteenth up came the English ; 
Maude and his battery leading the way; with the 
Fusiliers and the sharpshooters of the Sixty-fourth 
close at his heels. Shrapnel shells and conical 
bullets quickly cleared away everything from our 
front, and strewed the highway with corpses, 
weapons, and abandoned tents and waggons. The 
Second Cavalry caught sight of our baggage, which 
had been left beneath a grove in the care of a 
slender guard, and fancied that they discerned an 



V . THE MASSACRE 251 

occasion for distinguishing themselves after their 
own fashion. But they were lamentably disappointed. 
The regiment had to bustle back with empty pockets 
and not a few empty saddles, and thenceforward 
was contented to rest on the renown of previous 
exploits. 

Bala Rao withdrew his troops behind a stream 
which crossed the road a league in rear of the con- 
tested village. The water was too deep to be forded. 
The bridge was strongly fortified, and defended by 
two twenty-four pounders. Our force proceeded to 
the attack after a slight tiffin, and a short siesta for 
all whose nerves were firm enough to allow them a 
snatch of sleep between two of the rounds in a fight 
for such a prize. Maude raked the hostile cannon, 
which stood in a salient bend of the river : while 
the Fusiliers advanced in skirmishino^ order, enrasfed 
at the fall of gallant Major Eenaud, whose thigh 
had been broken early in the day. After plying their 
rifles with deadly effect, they suddenly closed up, 
and flung themselves headlong on the bridge. Bala 
Bao, to whom cannot be charged the cowardice 
whicli a popular maxim associates with cruelty, had 
purposed to maintain his post to the last : but on 
this occasion he had not to do with the front-rank of 
seated ladies and children, and a rear-rank of gentle- 
men whose hands were strapped behind their backs. 
With set teeth, and flashing eyes, and firelocks 
tightly clenched, pelted by grape and musketry, our 
people converged at a run upon the narrow passage. 
When they came near enough to afford the enemy 
an opportunity of observing on their countenances 
that expression which the Sahibs always wear when 



252 CAWNPORE chap. 

they do not mean to turn back, the rebel array broke 
and fled. The fugitives took with them their General, 
who carried off in his shoulder a lump of Govern- 
ment lead, to which he was most heartily welcome ; 
but did not find time for the removal of their artil- 
lery. There passed into our hands four guns ; which 
cannot be said to have been dearly purchased at six 
casualties apiece. 

Wounded as he was, Bala Rao brought to Cawn- 
pore the tidings of his own defeat. He went straight 
to the quarters of his brother, which were soon 
crowded with the leading rebels, who came to hear 
what had happened, and to impart their apprehen- 
sions and suggestions. The deliberations of this 
improvised council were at first confused and de- 
sultory. Some were for retiring to Bithoor ; some 
for uniting their forces with the mutineers of Futteh- 
gur. At length, by a slender majority of voices, it 
was decided to make one more stand south of 
Cawnpore. 

When the resolution had been adopted, Teeka 
Sing asked whether the Nana had made up his 
mind as to what should be done with the prisoners ; 
and hinted that, in case things went ill, it might 
be awkward for some then present should the Sahibs 
find such a mass of evidence ready to their hands ; 
nay, more, that the chances of a reverse would be 
considerably lessened if the captives were once j)ut 
out of the way. The British were approaching 
solely for the purpose of releasing their compatriots, 
and would not risk another battle for the satisfac- 
tion of burying them. They would be only too glad 
of an excuse to avoid meeting the Peishwa in the 



V : THE MASSACRE 253 

field. Dhoondoo Punth was not hard to convince 
on such a point. Whenever bloodshed was in ques- 
tion, he showed himself the least impracticable of 
men. In the present instance he would never have 
required prompting, but for the importunity of the 
royal widows, his stepmothers by adoption, who had 
sent him word that they would throw themselves 
and their children from the upper windows of the 
palace if he again murdered any of their sex. As 
a pledge that this was no vain parade of philanthropy 
they had abstained from food and drink for many 
hours together. In order to anticipate their remon- 
strances, directions were given to set about the work 
forthwith. In fact, for every reason, 'twas well that 
it should be done quickly. The assembly broke up ; 
but all who could spare the time stayed for at least 
the commencement of such a representation as none 
could hope to behold twice in a lifetime. 

At four o'clock in the afternoon, or between that 
and five, some of the Nana's people went across to 
the house of bondage, and bade the Englishmen who 
were there to come forth. Forth they came ; — the 
three persons from Futtehgur, and the merchant and 
his son ; — accompanied by the biggest of the children, 
a youth of fourteen, who, poor boy, was glad perhaps 
to take this opportunity of classing himself with his 
elders. Some ladies pressed out to watch the course 
which the party took, but were pushed back by the 
sentries. The gentlemen inquired whither they 
were going, and were answered that the Peishwa 
had sent for them on some concern of his own. 
But all around was a deep throng of spectators, 
the foremost rows seated on the ground, so that 



254 CAWNPORE chap. 

those behind might vsee : while an outer circle occu- 
pied, as it Avere, reserved places on the wall of the 
inclosure. There, beneath a spreading lime-tree, 
lounged Dhoondoo Punth, the gold lace of his 
turban glittering in the sunshine. There were 
Jwala Pershad ; and Tantia Topee ; and Azimoolah, 
the ladies' man ; and Bala Rao, the twinges of whose 
shoulder-blade heightened his avidity for the coming 
show. When this concourse was noticed by our 
countrymen, their lips moved as if in prayer. At 
the gate which led into the road they were stopped 
by a squad of sepoys, and shot dead. Their bodies 
were thrown on to the grass which bordered the 
highway, and became the sport of the rabble ; who, 
doubtless, pointed to them in turn, and said : " That 
" Sahib is the Governor of Bengal ; and this is the 
" Governor of Madras ; and this is the Governor 
" of Bombay." That was the joke which during 
that twelvemonth went the round of Northern 
India. 

About half-an-hour after this the woman called 
" the Begum " informed the captives that the Peishwa 
had determined to have them killed. One of the 
ladies went up to the native officer who commanded 
the guard, and told him that she learned they were 
all to die. To this he replied that, if such were the 
case, he must have heard something about it; so 
that she had no cause to be afraid : and a soldier 
said to the Begum : " Your orders will not be obeyed. 
Who are you that you should give orders ? " Upon 
this the woman fired up, and hurried off to lay the 
affair before the Nana. During her absence the 
sepoys discussed the matter, and resolved that they 



V THE MASSACRE 255 

would uever lift tlieir weapons against the prisoners. 
One of them afterwards confessed to a friend that 
his own motive for so deciding was anxiety to stand 
well with the Sahibs, if ever they got back to Cawn- 
pore. The BegTim presently returned with five men, 
each carrying a sabre. Two were Hindoo peasants : 
the one thirty-five years of age, fair and tall, with 
long mustachios, but flat-faced and wall-eyed : the 
other considerably his senior, short, and of a sallow 
complexion. Two were butchers by calling : portly 
strapping fellows, both well on in life. The larger of 
the two was disfigured by the traces of the small- 
pox. They were Mohammedans, of course; as no 
Hindoo could adopt a trade which obliged him to 
spill the blood of a cow. 

These four were dressed in dirty- white clothes. The 
fifth, likewise a Mussulman, wore the red uniform of 
the Maharaja's body-guard, and is reported to have 
been the sweetheart of the BegTim. He was called 
Survur Khan, and passed for a native of some distant 
province. A bystander remarked that he had hair 
on his hands. 

The sepoys were bidden to fall on. Half-a-dozen 
amono' them advanced, and discharofed their muskets 
through the windows at the ceiling of the apart- 
ments. Thereupon the five men entered. It was 
the short gloaming of Hindostan — the hour when 
ladies take their evening drive. She who had 
accosted the officer was standing in the doorway. 
With her were the native doctor, and two Hindoo 
menials. That much of the business might be seen 
from the verandah, but all else was concealed amidst 
the interior gloom. Shrieks and scuffling acquainted 



256 CAWNPOKE chap. 

those without that the journeymen were earning 
their hire. Survur Khan soon emerged with his 
sword broken off at the hilt. He procured another 
from the Nana s house, and a few minutes after 
appeared again on the same errand. The third blade 
was of better temper : or perhaps the thick of the 
work was already over. By the time darkness had 
closed in, the men came forth and locked up the 
house for the night. Then the screams ceased: but 
the groans lasted till morning. 

The sun rose as usual. When he had been up 
nearly three hours the five repaired to the scene of 
their labours over-night. They were attended by a 
few sweepers, who proceeded to transfer the contents 
of the house to a dry well situated behind some 
trees which grew hard by. " The bodies," says one 
who was present throughout, " were dragged out, 
" most of them by the hair of the head. Those who 
" had clothes worth taking were stripped. Some of 
" the women were alive. I cannot say how many ; 
" but three could speak. They prayed for the sake of 
'' God that an end might be put to their sufferings. 
" I remarked one very stout woman, a half-caste, 
" who was severely wounded in both arms, who 
" entreated to be killed. She and two or three 
" others were placed against the bank of the cut by 
" which bullocks go down in drawing water. The 
" dead were first thrown in. Yes : there was a great 
" crowd looking on : they were standing along the 
" walls of the compound. They were principally 
" city people and villagers. Yes : there were also 
" sepoys. Three boys were alive. They were fair 
" children. The eldest, I think, must have been six 



V THE MASSACRE 257 

" or seven, and the youngest five years. They were 
" running round the well, (where else could they go 
" to ?) and there was none to save them. No : none 
" said a word or tried to save them." 

At length the smallest of them made an infantile 
attempt to get away. The little thing had been 
frightened past bearing by the murder of one of the 
surviving ladies. He thus attracted the observation 
of a native, who flung him and his companions down 
the well. One deponent is of opinion that the man 
first took the trouble to kill the children. Others 
think not. The corpses of the gentlemen must 
have been committed to the same receptacle : for a 
townsman who looked over the brink fancied that 
there was a " Sahib uppermost." This is the history 
of what took place at Cawnpore, between four in 
the afternoon of one day and nine in the morning of 
another, almost under the shadow of the church- 
tower, and within call of the Theatre, the Assembly 
Rooms, and the Masonic Lodge. Long before noon 
on the sixteenth July there remained no living 
European within the circuit of the station. 

But there were plenty at no great distance : for, 
about the turn of day, our force, after travelling 
five leagues, rested for a space in a hamlet buried 
amidst a forest of mango groves. A mile to north- 
ward lay the sepoy host, intrenched across the 
spot where the by-way to Cawnpore branches from 
the Grand Trunk Road. Seven guns commanded 
the approaches, and behind a succession of fortified 
villages were gathered five thousand fighting men, 
prepared to strike a last blow for their necks and 
their booty. Havelock resolved to turn the flank 



258 CAWNPORE chap. 

of the Nana : for lie was aware that, if an opponent 
assails a native army otherwise than as it intended 
to be assailed when it took up its position, the 
General for a certainty loses his head, and the 
soldiers their hearts. The word was given, and our 
column defiled at a steady 23ace round the left of 
the hostile line. The Fusiliers led, with two field- 
pieces in their rear. Then came the Highlanders, 
and the bulk of the Artillery ; followed by the 
Sixty-fourth, the Eighty- fourth, and the Sikh bat- 
talion. For some time the mutineers seemed to 
be unconscious of what was going on : deceived 
by clumps of fruit-trees, that screened oar move- 
ment; and distracted by the sharp look-out which 
they were keeping straight ahead. But soon an 
evident sensation was created along their whole 
array. Their batteries began discharging shot and 
shell with greater liberality than accuracy ; while 
a body of cavaliers pushed forward in the direction 
of our march, and made a demonstration that did 
not lead to much. As soon as the enemy's flank 
was completely exposed to the English attack, our 
troops halted, faced, and advanced in the order 
wherein they found themselves, covered by two 
companies of the Fusiliers extended as skirmishers. 
Colonel Hamilton bade the pipes strike up, and led 
the Seventy-eighth against a cluster of houses de- 
fended by three guns. His horse was shot between 
his legs : but the kilts never stopped until they 
were masters of all inside the village. Three more 
pieces were captured by Major Stirling and the 
Sixty-fourth Regiment. The rebel infantry were 
everywhere in full retreat : for the last half-hour 



V THE MASSACRE 259 

nothing had been seen of the cavahy : and the 
battle appeared to be won. 

Our firing had ah-eady ceased. The officers were 
congratulating each other on their easy victory : 
the privates were lighting their cheroots, and specu- 
lating on the probability of an extra allowance of 
rum : when of a sudden a twenty-four pounder, 
planted on the Cawnpore Road, opened with fatal 
precision upon our exhausted ranks. Two large 
masses of horsemen rode forward over the plain. 
The foot rallied, and came down with drums beating 
and colours flying : and the presence of a numerous 
staff, in gallant attire, announced that the Peishwa 
himself was there, bent on daring something great 
in defence of his tottering throne. Meanwhile our 
artillery cattle, tired out by continual labour over 
vile roads and under a burning sun, could no longer 
drag the cannon into action. The volunteers did 
whatever might be done by a dozen and a half 
planters mounted on untrained hunters. The in- 
surgents grew insolent : our soldiers were falling 
fast : and the British General perceived that the 
crisis was not yet over. He despatched his son to 
the spot where the men of the Sixty-fourth were 
lying down under such cover as they could get, with 
an order to rise and charge. 

They leapt to their feet, rejoicing to fling aside 
their inaction : and young Havelock placed himself 
at their head, and steered his horse straight for 
the muzzle of the gun : mindful, perhaps, how, four- 
and-forty years before, his sire, then a light-haired 
stripling, showed our allies on the banks of the 
Bidassoa that an English steed could clear a French 



260 CAWNPORE chap. 

breastwork. But our people were not Spaniards : 
and more than one indignant veteran asked in 
grumbling tones whether the corps might not be 
trusted to the guidance of its own officers. Nor 
did their Major need that any one should show him 
the way, when once he had dismounted, and thrown 
to a groom the bridle of his fidgety little charger, a 
shapely bay Arab, on whose back, four months later, 
he was shot dead amidst his shattered regiment in a 
glorious but ineffectual attempt to retrieve a dis- 
astrous day. 

And then the mutineers realized the change that 
a few weeks had wrought in the nature of the task 
which they had selected and cut out for themselves. 
The affair was no longer with mixed gToups of in- 
valids and civilians, without strategy or discipline, 
resisting desperately wherever they might chance to 
be brought to bay. Now from left to right extended 
the unbroken line of white faces, and red cloth, and 
sparkling steel. In front of all, the field officer 
stepped briskly out, doing his best to keep ahead *of 
his people. There marched the captains, duly posted 
on the flank of their companies ; and the subalterns, 
gesticulating with their swords ; and the sober, 
bearded sergeants, each behind his respective sec- 
tion. Embattled in their national order, and burn- 
ing with more than their national lust of combat, on 
they came, the unconquerable British Infantry. The 
grape was flying thick and true. Files rolled over. 
Men stumbled, and recovered themselves, and went 
on for a while, and then turned and hobbled to 
the rear. But the Sixty-fourth was not to be 
denied. Closer and closer drew the measured tramp 



y THE MASSACRE 261 

of feet : and the heart of the foe died within him, 
and his fire grew hasty and ill-directed. As the 
last volley cut the air overhead, our soldiers raised a 
mighty shout, and rushed forward, each at his own 
pace. And then every rebel thought only of himself. 
Those nearest the place were the first to make away : 
but throughout the host there were none who still 
aspired to stay within push of the EngKsh bayonets. 
Such as had any stomach left for fighting were 
sickened by a dose of shrapnel and canister from 
four light guns, which Maude, as though by an effort 
of volftion, had driven up within point-blank range. 
Squadron after squadron, battalion upon battahon, 
these humbled Brahmins dropped their weapons 
stripped off their packs, and spurred, and ran, and 
limped, and scrambled back to the city that was to 
have been the chief and central abode of sepoy 

domination. ■ - -. ^^ 

Nanukchund was hanging about the vicmity all 
the while the conflict was in progress. " On the 
"fifteenth," he writes, "I perceived some sepoys 
"and troopers running away in great confusion, and 
"exclaiming that they would have an easy victory, 
"as the British were few, and would soon be 
"despatched. I was then sitting m an orchard, 
"when I observed a shopkeeper running up. He 
"came, and seated himself under a tree near me, 
" and told me that he was hastening to pack up his 
''wife and children, as the Europeans would amye 
"shortly, and would spare nobody. I thought to 
"myself, this must be true, and the gentlemen must 
"be very savage. I returned to the city, and saw 
"several villagers with their dresses changed 



262 CAWNPORE ohap. 

"coming along the banks of the Ganges, and I 
"joined them. The terror in the hearts of all was 
" so great that they asked each other no questions." 

On the morrow, the day of the final struggle, 
Nanukchund says : " I was in the streets soon after 
"noon-time. People who have seen the fighting 
" declare that the rebels are running back, and that 
" the mutineers are trying to escape from the battle. 
" Intelligence of this sort was brought from time to 
"time till it got dusk. The bad people are all 
"crestfallen, and advising each other to quit the 
" town. I saw Kalka, a barber by caste, who took 
" service as a trooper under the Nana, running in 
"for his life, and trying to get something to eat 
"from the bazaar. A little while after it was pro- 
" claimed by beat of drum that the inhabitants must 
"not get alarmed, as there were only one hundred 
"Europeans remaining: and that whoever brought 
"in the head of an Englishman should receive a 
" hundred rupees. But news came that the Sahibs 
" were close upon the cantonments, and the man 
" who was beating the drum abandoned it and fled." 

At nightfall Dhoondoo Punth entered Cawnpore 
upon a chestnut horse drenched in perspiration, and 
with bleeding flanks. A fresh access of terror soon 
dismissed him again on his way towards Bithoor, sore 
and weary, his head swimming and his chest heaving. 
He was not in condition for such a gallop, the first 
earnest of that hardship and degradation which was 
thenceforward to be his portion. Far otherwise had 
he been wont to return to his palace after a visit of 
state in the English quarter, lolling, vinaigTotte in 
hand, beneath the breath of fans, amidst the cushions 



V THE MASSACRE 263 

of a luxurious carriage, surrounded by a moving hedge 
of outriders and running footmen. Once again in 
the home of his fathers he slept as the wicked sleep, 
whose sin has found them out ; and, when the 
morrow's sun had set, he departed in craven trepi- 
da,tion, and was never after seen among the haunts 
of peaceful men. But he was true to himself, even 
in the crash of his falling dynasty : for, as he stepped 
on board the barge that was to transport him to the 
confines of Oude, he bethought him of the young- 
mother who was recovering from the pains of child- 
birth in the recesses of the female apartments. For 
the first time he had practised economy in his 
enjoyments, and was now well repaid : for his 
savings had borne high interest. There Avere two 
English lives to take where a fortnight ago there 
had been but one. And then, having filled to over- 
flowing the measure of his guilt, he passed away 
like a thief in the night, and left his wealth to the 
spoiler, and his halls to the owl and the snake. 

Some months subsequently two of our spies, who 
had been commissioned to obtain information about 
Miss Wheeler, passed six days in the train of the 
fugitive Nana in the depths of an Oude wilderness. 
In the vicinity of his encampment they overtook a 
sepoy, with whom they got into conversation. He 
asked why they had come into the desert. They 
represented themselves as desirous of taking service 
with one of the Peishwa's eunuchs, and reminded 
the soldiers that they were old acquaintances of his 
own. He seems to have been a good-natured fellow : 
for he told them that it was a dangerous neighbour- 
hood for strangers, but promised, since they had 



264 CAWNPORIE chap. 

ventured that far, to introduce them as his fellow- 
villagers. They found from twelve to fifteen thou- 
sand people collected in the jungles. Everything 
betokened distress, disorder, and discontent. Food 
was scarce and dear. The Maharaja had appro- 
priated the single pair of tents ; so that his followers 
were fain to bivouac under the foliage, starving on 
rice bought at twelvepence a pound; wringing out 
their tattered garments, wet with the eternal rain; 
and sighing for the curry-pots and tight roofs of the 
Cawnpore cantonments. It is interesting to learn 
that the most poverty-stricken and dejected of all 
the mutineers were the troopers of the Second 
Cavalry. The horses had been reduced to less 
than a hundred, and the artillery to a couple of 
field-pieces. The Nana, attended by a servant with 
an umbrella, went daily to bathe in a river which 
flowed at the foot of the hill whereon his pavilion 
stood. A crowd regularly assembled to pay their 
respects as he passed. The two men especially 
noticed certain officers of his household : the trea- 
surer and paymaster ; the driver of his bullock- 
carriage ; his chief baker, and chief gardener ; his 
shampooer, his sweeper, his boatman, and his 
wrestlers, both Hindoo and Mohammedan. Bala 
was there, with the scar of an English bullet on 
his shoulder, which he has probably by this time 
carried to an obscure grave. The royal brothers 
were said to be very anxious to get back to ease and 
civilization. Their wives were disposed upon an 
adjoining range of heights, in company with the 
widows of Bajee Rao, who deserved better than to 
be transported about against their will in the suite 



V THE MASSACRE 265 

of that imromantic Pretender. The ladies of the 
court travelled in six palanquins, and the gentlemen 
on as many elephants. 

Yet a few weeks, and Dhoondoo Punth, stripped of 
even these relics of his former affluence and grandeur, 
escaped across the Nepaulese marches to a life of 
suspense, and toil, and privations amidst the Hima- 
layan solitudes. The end of that man we know not, 
and may never know. Perchance, as they hover over 
some wild ravine or wind-swept peak, the eagles won- 
der at the great ruby which sparkles amidst the rags 
of a vagrant who perished amidst the snows of a past 
December. Perchance another generation will hear, 
not without a qualm of involuntary reverence and 
pity, that the world-noted malefactor is at last to 
expiate misdeeds already classical. He may have 
eluded human justice. His hemp may be still to 
sow. But his place in history is fixed irreversibly 
and for ever. The most undaunted lover of para- 
dox would hardly undertake to wash white that 
ensanguined fame. 

" In the month of July, a year and a half ago," 
so deposes a native tradesman, eighteen months 
after the massacre, " I was in my house at Ooghoo, 
"when ten or eleven persons, who had fled from 
" Cawnpore, came to my shop, and asked for betel- 
"leaf to chew. I showed them new betel-leaf; 
" when two of them, both Hindoos, told me to fetch 
" good old betel-leaf, or they would take my head off. 
" I accordingly went to another seller of betel-leaf, 
" and bought the kind they asked for, and told them 
" the price of the same, namely, ten pice. The two 
" men said they would only give me two. I replied 



266 CAWNPORE chap. 

"tliat the betel-leaf was worth ten pice, and that 
" they ought at the least to give me eight pice : on 
" which they said that they would kill me and all 
" my family. I stated I was a poor man, and had 
"got the betel-leaf from another person. They 
"then said that they had shown no pity to the 
" ladies and children whom they had just murdered, 
" and who clung to their feet, and that they would 
" have no pity upon me. They frightened me greatly, 
"showing me a naked sword, covered with blood, 
"and said that they would cut off my head with 
" the same. I wept," says this weak-minded young- 
man, " and my mother, hearing me cry, came out, 
" and begged of them not to hurt me, and that she 
" would let them have more betel-leaf. After this 
"they drew water from a well close to my house, 
"near a temple, and, conversing among themselves, 
"I heard their companions ask the two men how 
"many ladies they had killed. They replied that 
" they had murdered twenty-one ladies and children, 
" and had received a reward of twenty-one rupees ; 
"and added that at first the Nana ordered the 
" sepoys to massacre the ladies ; but they refused ; 
" and that they two, with three others, carried out 
" the Nana's orders." 

Another resident of Ooghoo thus tells his story : 
" The truth is that, shortly after the Nana fled, I 
"was sitting under a tamarind tree, where all the 
" men of the village assemble to talk, and was con- 
" versing with a few others about the massacre of 
"the Europeans at Cawnpore. We were saying 
"that the Nana ought not to have murdered the 
" women and children : when Souracun, Brahmin, 



W THE MASSACRE 267 

" of Ooglioo, who is thirty-five years old, and has 
"a defect in his eye, stated that the officials sent 
" him to kill the ladies ; that he struck one with his 
" sword, which bent, and he then felt pity, and did 
" not again strike. He showed us the bent sword." 
On this occasion Souracun seems to have sunk the 
twenty-one rupees : which, however, must have lasted 
him a good while if he made all his purchases at the 
same rate as he bouslit betel-leaf. " All the villaoe 

o o 

" heard that he was one of the murderers : but, since 
"the British rule has been re-established, no one 
"speaks of it for fear he would be hung, and his 
" death be laid on their head." 

There is good reason to believe that Souracun and 
his fellows met with their deserts. Mr. Batten, now 
in high office at AgTa, was the first representative of 
settled government in the district of Cawnpore after 
the troubles began to subside. He had the honour 
of removing the gibbet from the ladies' well, and so 
tempered ferocity with common sense that those 
who once railed at him as squeamish have at length 
come to approve his conduct in spite of themselves. 
But he did not bear the sword in vain. There were 
brought before him two Hindoos, one advanced in 
years, and the other much his junior. These men 
were found guilty of having compassed the death of 
a Eurasian, and doomed to the gallows. No sooner 
had their sentence been pronounced than they poured 
forth a torrent of foul abuse, and were dragged from 
the dock shouting, and kicking, and cursing their 
judge and all his relatives on the maternal side. 

Now, the Oriental, always polite, becomes doubly 
courteous when death is in immediate prospect. 



268 CAWNPORE chap. 

Then, more than ever, is he anxious to set the 
company at their ease, and to make away with any 
disagreeable sense of the false position in which the 
hangman stands towards the felon. A civilian at 
Lucknow was superintending an execution when the 
rope, which had doubtless borne more than one such 
strain, gave way, and the convict fell to the ground. 
As he rose, he turned to the Englishman, and said 
in the tone wherein men utter social convention- 
alities : " Sahib, the rope's broke." He felt that it 
was incumbent on him to do what he could towards 
relieving the general embarrassment arising from a 
pause in the proceedings, awkward for all parties, 
but especially for the commissioner, who was en- 
dowed with sensibility and genuine refinement. 

Batten, than whom no man was more conver- 
sant with the native character, regarded the fury of 
his two prisoners as an extraordinary phenomenon, 
and requested an explanation from the bystanders. 
He was told that the pair were piqued at being con- 
demned on so paltry a charge as the murder of a 
half-caste, after having taken the principal part in 
a strange and noteworthy exploit, at which they 
hinted in their cups ; and that, poor as they seemed, 
they rode fine horses, and wore gorgeous shawls, 
which they were accustomed to speak of as having 
been presented to them by the Nana in token of his 
esteem and satisfaction. 

Few of the Cawnpore mutineers survived to boast 
of their enterprise. Evil hunted these violent men 
to their overthrow. Those whom the halter and the 
bayonet spared had no reason to bless their exemp- 
tion. Many whom pillage had enriched were slain 



V THE MASSACRE 269 

for the sake of that which they had about them by 
banditti who confidently presumed that the law 
would not call in question the motives of him who 
exterminated a sepoy. All who returned to their 
villages empty-handed were greeted by then^ mdig- 
nant families with bitter and most just reproaches. 
They had been excellently provided for by the 
bounty of God and the Company. Their pay 
secured them all the comforts which a Brahmm 
may enjoy, and left the wherewithal to help less 
fortunate kinsmen. Yet they flung away their ad- 
vantages in wilful and selfish haste. They smned 
alone and for their private ends; but alone they 
were not to suffer. They had changed the Sahibs 
into demons, and had conjured up tenfold more of 
these demons than had hitherto been conceived to 
exist. They had called down untold calamities upon 
the quiet peasantry of their native land. And all this 
misery they had wrought in pursuit of the vision of 
a military empire. Let them return to the desert, 
there to feed without interruption on the contempla- 
tion of their power and pre-eminence. Such were the 
taunts with which they were driven forth again into 
the jungles : some to die by the claws of tigers on 
whose lair they had intruded for refuge, or beneath 
the clubs of herdsmen whose cattle they had pilfered 
in the rage of hunger: others to wander about, 
drenched and famished, until amidst the branches 
of a tree into which they had climbed to seek safety 
from the hysenas and the ague, or on the sandy floor 
of a cave whither they had crept for shelter from the 
tempest, they found at once their death-bed and their 
sepulchre. The jackals alone can tell on what bush 



270 CAWNPORE chap. 

flutter the shreds of scarlet stuff which mark the 
spot where one of our revolted mercenaries has 
expiated his broken oath. 

Soon after daybreak on Friday the seventeenth 
July, the English van was marching across the 
desolate plain which lay to southward of the city. 
Already the magical effect of the tropical rain had 
clothed that expanse of parched and dusty soil 
with luxuriant grass, in which rustled the feet of 
our soldiers as they pushed along, now stumbling 
over a hidden cannon-ball, and now kicking up the 
fragments of a sepoy skeleton. They traversed the 
deserted line of rebel posts, and halted beneath the 
walls of the roofless barracks, pitted with shot and 
blackened with flame, and beside the grave at whose 
mouth were scattered the bones of our people, as 
when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth. 
Three Fridays back from that very morning the 
treaty of surrender was being attested by a faith- 
less signature, and sworn to with perfidious vows : 
and again at a like interval of time the men of 
the Second Cavalry were firing their stables, and 
saddling their horses, and buckling on the swords 
that were to be fleshed in unmanly strife. So much 
had been done and endured within a period of six 
weeks and a space of six miles. 

" At half-past six A.M.," writes Nanukchund, " the 
" British force arrived in cantonments outside the 
" city. Those of the citizens who were well-wishers 
" to the Government brought them bread, butter, 
" and milk. A great crowd of the townspeople 
" assembled to see what was going on. I also, who 
" had not stepped out of my house for a month and 



V THE MASSACRE 271 

" a half for fear of being murdered, now came out 
" and went to cantonments. Generals Havelock 
" and Neill, and a number of other officers, were 
" standing there. Fruiterers, milkmen, buttermen, 
" bakers, and other sellers of provisions were in 
" attendance with their dollies. Those who were 
" aware of what was coming had made preparations 
" on the night previous by having provisions cooked 
" in the bazaar. A little after eight the rebels who 
" had mined the magazine set fire to the powder, and 
" fled. The report of the explosion was so terrific, 
"that the doors of city-houses fell off their hinges." 
Our old friend was now in high spirits. His 
turn had come, and he showed himself fully equal 
to the occasion. " I continued," he says, " to 
" attend on the Sahibs with a view of performing 
" acts of loyalty. I set to work to find out what 
" men of the city had been loyal, and which of 
'' them disloyal, and how some of the public officers 
" came to present themselves to the Nana, while 
"others contrived not to present themselves. I 
" laboured night and day at great personal incon- 
" venience to learn full particulars about these 
" people. I questioned only honourable and upright 
" men, and no others." He is especially disturbed 
at the assurance of one Narain Rao, " who, just as I 
" anticipated, wishes to pass himself off as a well- 
" wisher to the Government. But there is a great 
" crowd at this moment, and the Sahibs have no 
'' time to spare. It is also very difficult to find 
" witnesses against him by private inquiries, and 
" I see no chance of filing a complaint about it 
" before any officer." 



272 CAWNPOEE chap. 

It seems strange if the Sahibs could not afford 
time to pay off an old score that had really been 
incurred. But the truth was that it mattered to them 
very little whom they killed, as long as they killed 
somebody. After the first outbreak of joy and wel- 
come the inhabitants of Cawnpore began to be aware 
that the English were no longer the same men, if 
indeed they were men at all. The citizens, with their 
wives and children, poured forth into the country by 
crowds, without stopping to calculate whether they 
could establish their innocence. At such an assize, 
and in the eyes of such a jury, absence was the only 
defence that could avail aught. From noon till 
midnight, on the Lucknow and Delhi highway were 
to be seen immense mobs rushing eastward and 
westward in headlong haste. They did well both 
for their own security and for our honour. Of what 
did take place the less said is the better. Of that 
from which by God's mercy we were saved it were 
best to say nothing at all. The heat of the climate 
and the conflict, the scarcity of food and the con- 
stant presence of disease, the talk which they had 
heard at Calcutta, the deeds that they had been 
allowed and even enjoined to commit during their 
upward progress, had depraved the conscience and 
destroyed the self-control of our unhappy soldiers. 
Reckless as men who for many weeks had never 
known what it was to be certain of another hour's 
life, — half starved, and more than half intoxicated, 
— regarding carnage as a duty and rapine as a 
pleasure, — they enacted a scene into the details of 
which an Englishman at least will not care to inquire. 
Havelock, in a report to the Commander-in-Chief, 



V . THE MASSACRE 273 

thus writes : " I have ordered all the beer, wine, 
'' spirits, and every drinkable thing at Cawnpore 
"to be purchased by the Commissariat. It will 
" then be guarded by a few men. If it remained 
" at Cawnpore it would require half my force to 
" keep it from being drunk up by the other half, 
" and I should not have a soldier in camp. While 
" I was winning a victory on the sixteenth some of 
" my men were plundering the Commissariat on the 
" line of march." 

And so the General purchased all the liquor. 
It would have been well if he could have bought 
up the blood also. It was idle to count upon the 
forbearance of poor ignorant privates, when the 
ablest among our officers had forgotten alike the age 
in which he lived, and the religion that he professed. 
This is an extract from a letter which would that 
Neill had never found occasion to indite ! 

" Whenever a rebel is caught he is immediately 
" tried, and, unless he can prove a defence, he is 
" sentenced to be hanged at once : but the chief 
" rebels or ringleaders I make first to clear up a 
" certain portion of the pool of blood, still two 
" inches deep, in the shed where the fearful murder 
" and mutilation of the women and children took 
" place. To touch blood is most abhorrent to the 
" high-caste natives. They think, by doing so, they 
" doom their souls to perdition. Let them think so. 
" My object is to inflict a fearful punishment for a 
" revolting, cowardly, barbarous deed, and to strike 
" terror into these rebels. The first I caught was a 
" soubahdar, or native officer, a high-caste Brahmin, 
" who tried to resist my order to clean up the very 



274 CAWNPORE chap. 

" blood lie had helped to shed : but I made the 
" provost-marshal do his duty, and a few lashes soon 
" made the miscreant accomplish his task. When 
" done, he was taken out and immediately hanged, 
" and, after death, buried in a ditch at the road- 
" side." 

For a parallel to such an episode we must explore 
far back into the depths of time. Homer relates 
the punishment that befell those maidservants, who 
in the palace of Ithaca had been unmindful of what 
they owed to their absent lord. " First they bore 
" forth from the hall the dead bodies of their para- 
" mours, and placed them in the vestibule, staggering 
" beneath the weight : while Ulysses urged on the 
" work by word and gesture : and they laboured at 
" the ungrateful task, wailing, and shedding bitter 
" tears. And afterwards with water and sponges they 
" washed the tables and the seats : and Telemachus 
" and his henchmen scraped with spades the floor of 
" the chamber. But, when they had set the house in 
" order, the women were led out, and cooped up for a 
" while in a corner of the well-fenced court, in a strait 
" place, whence escape was none. And then Tele- 
" machus slung from the roof the cable of a dark- 
" prowed ship, and made it fast to a pillar of the 
" colonnade, stretching it high and taut, so that no 
" foot might feel the ground. And, as when swift 
" thrushes or doves, making for their nest, have 
" dashed into a snare which a fowler had planted 
" across the thicket, so these women were fastened 
"in a row, with a halter round every neck, to die 
" in unseemly fashion. And their feet fluttered a 
" moment in the air : but not for long." 



V THE MASSACRE 275 

It is curious that an act, which the Pagan poet 
allows an old moss-trooper and his son to perpetrate 
in the flush of revenge and victory, should have been 
revived by a Christian warrior after the lapse of 
twenty-five centuries. And it must be owned that 
Neill surpassed his model : for apparently the pri- 
mary object of Ulysses was to sweep away the traces 
of the butchery, and make his refectory clean and 
habitable : an unpleasant drudgery, which, as with 
the simplicity of an ancient Greek he reflected, 
might as well be performed by the least worthy 
members of his household before they were taken to 
execution : whereas the Englishman desired onlj^ to 
wound the sentiments of the doomed men, and 
prolong their prospect of death with a vista of 
eternal misery. And this, in the crisis of an insur- 
rection of which the immediate cause was the belief 
that the British Government was attempting to 
tamper with caste ! 

But there was a spectacle to be witnessed which 
might excuse much. Those who, straight from the 
contested field, wandered sobbing through the rooms 
of the ladies' house, saw what it were well could the 
outraged earth have straightway hidden. The inner 
apartment was ankle-deep in blood. The plaster was 
scored with sword-cuts : not high up, as where men 
have fought ; but low down, and about the corners, 
as if a creature had crouched to avoid the blow. 
Strips of dresses, vainly tied round the handles 
of the doors, signified the contrivance to which 
feminine despair had resorted as a means of keeping 
out the murderers. Broken combs were there, and 
the frills of children's trousers, and torn cuffs and 



27G CAWNPORE chap. 

pinafores, and little round hats, and one or two 
shoes with burst latchets, and one or two daguerreo- 
type cases with cracked glasses. An officer picked 
up a few curls, preserved in a bit of cardboard, and 
marked " Ned's hair, with love " : but around were 
strewn locks, some near a yard in length, dissevered, 
not as a keepsake, by quite other scissors. All who 
on that day passed within the fatal doors agree posi- 
tively to assert that no inscription of any sort or 
kind was visible on the walls. Before the month 
was out, the bad habit, common to low Englishmen, 
of scribbling where they ought not, here displaying 
itself in an odious form, had covered the princij^al 
buildings of Cawnpore with vulgar and disgusting 
forgeries, false in date, in taste, in spelling, and in 
fact. 

There were found two slips of paper : one bearing 
in an unknown hand a brief but correct outline of 
our disasters. On the other a Miss Lindsay had 
kept an account of the killed and wounded in a 
single family. It runs thus, telling its own tale : 

" Entered the barracks May 21st. 
" Cavalry left June 5th. 
" First shot fired June 6th. 
" Aunt Lilly died June l7th, 
"Uncle Willy died June 18th. 
" Left barracks June 27th. 
" George died June 27th. 
" Alice died July 9th. 
"Mamma died July 12th." 

The writer, with her two surviving sisters, perished 
in the final massacre. 



V THE MASSACKE 277 

The library of the captives was small indeed : but 
such books as they liad were to the purpose. The 
earliest comers discovered among the vestiges of 
slaughter, a treatise entitled Prc^oaratioii for 
Death: and a Bible, which must have travelled in 
Major Vibart's barge down to Nuzzufgur and back 
to Cawnpore, as may be gathered from the following 
record : 

" 27th June. Went to the boats. 

" 29th. Taken out of boats. 

" 30th. Taken to Sevadah Kothi. Fatal day." 

Fatal indeed : for that was the day when " the 
" wives sat down, each by her husband ; " when 
"the sejDoys, going in, pulled them away forcibly; 
" but could not 23ull away the doctor's wife, who 
" there remained ; " when " one Sahib rolled one 
"way, and one another as they sat." That Bible 
was a present from the dead to the dead : for on 
the fly-leaf appeared this address : " For darling 
" Mamma, from her affectionate daughter, Isabella 
" Blair : " the " Bella Blair " whose fate is mentioned 
in the letter from young Masters to his father. The 
list was closed by a Church Service, from which the 
cover had been stripped, and many pages at the end 
torn off. Unbound and incomplete, it had fulfilled 
its mission : for it opened of itself where, within 
a crumpled and crimson-sprinkled margin, might be 
read the concise and beautiful supplications of our 
Litany. It concluded, that mutilated copy, with the 
forty-seventh Psalm, wherein David thanks the 
Almighty for a victory and a saving mercy : • 



278 CAWNPOEE chap. 

"0 clap your hands together, all ye people : O 
" sing unto God with a voice of melody. 

" He shall subdue the people under us : and the 
" nations under our feet. 

" God is gone up with a merry noise : and the Lord 
" with the sound of a trump. 

" God rejoiceth over the heathen : God sitteth on 
" his holy seat. 

" God, which is very high exalted, doth defend 
" the earth, as it were with a shield." 

Such were the printed lines which, from amidst 
the rent tresses, and shivered toys, and the scraps 
of nmslin dyed in the most costly of all pigments, 
lay staring up to high heaven in tacit but impressive 
irony. 

It is good that the house and the well of horror 
have been replaced by a fair garden and a graceful 
shrine. But there let piety stay her hand. A truce 
thenceforward to that mistaken reverence which 
loves to express sorrow and admiration in guineas, 
and rupees, and the net product of fancy bazaars ! 
Too often aheady have architect and sculptor dis- 
guised the place where a notable thing was done. 
India still contains some sacred plots untouched by 
the art of the decorator, — some shapeless ruins more 
venerable than dedicated aisle or stately mausoleum. 
Still, amidst the fantastic edifices of Lucknow, hard 
by a shattered gateway, rise or lie prostrate the 
pillars of a grass-grown portico. Beneath that 
verandah, in the July evening, preferring the risk 
of the hostile missiles to the confinement of a 
stifling cellar, was dying Henry Lawrence, the man 
who tried to do his duty. It was not time and 



^' THE MASSACRE 279 

the weather that made bare of plaster the brickwork 
of the old gate. There from summer into winter,— 
until of his two hundred musketeers he had buried 
four-score and five, and sent to hospital three-score 
and sixteen,— earning his Cross in ragged flannel 
trousers and a jersey of dubious hue, burly Jack 
Aitken bore up the unequal fray. An Englishman 
does not require any extraneous incentives to emo- 
tion when, leaning against the beams of that arch- 
way, he recalls who have thereby gone in and out, 
bent on what errands, and thinking what thoughts.' 
Between those door-posts have walked Peel, and 
Havelock, and gentle Outram, and stout Sir Colin, 
heroes who no longer tread the earth. Through\he 
same entrance passed, but not erect, the form of a 
tall grey soldier, stern even in death, with a bullet- 
wound in the centre of his forehead, whom the 
orderlies announced in whispers to be Neill of the 
Madras army. At Delhi still, before the police- 
court m the Street of Silver, may be seen the plat- 
form whereon, naked to the waist and besmeared 
with dirt and blood, were exposed to three autumn 
suns the corpses of the last descendants of Timour, 
slain and spoiled by one who knew neither pity nor 
scruple. Still, after an evening stroll along the 
ridge outside the battlements, as on his return he 
descends the slope rough with crag and brushwood, 
the visitor may come upon a mound of rubbish so 
beaten with shot that it is not easy to discern what 
of it is artificial rampart, and what is broken ground. 
The rocks coated with frequent films of lead, and 
the wreck of a small temple, testify that this is 
the famous post, known in military history as the 



280 CAWNP(311E ohap. v 

" Sammy-house picket," which Briton, and Sikh, and 
Ghoorka, fighting shoulder to shoulder, hardly made 
good throughout the hundred days of the terrible 
siege. On the summit of the tottering dome, at a 
height of some twelve feet from the soil, presides 
a Hindoo idol with an elephant's head. There he 
«its, a stupid little god, with arms reposing on his 
knees, gazing across the valley at the minarets of the 
ancient capital, as though he had never seen any 
stranger sight than the tourist in his white dress 
and dust-coloured helmet, or heard any sounds more 
wild and maddening than the chirping of the gTass- 
hopj^rs, and the lowing of the belated cattle as they 
stmy homeward to their stalls. Not urn, nor mono- 
lith, nor broken column is so fit a monument for 
brave men as the crumbling breastwork and the 
battered wall. And in like manner the dire agony 
of Cawnpore needs not to be figured in marble, or 
cut into granite, or cast of bronze. There is no fear 
lest we should forget the story of our people. The 
whole place is their tomb, and the name thereof is 
their epitaph. When the traveller from Allahabad, 
rousing himself to learn at what stage of his journey 
he may have arrived, is aware of a voice proclaiming 
through the darkness the city of melancholy fame, 
— then those accents, heard for the first time on the 
very spot itself which they designate, recall, more 
vividly than written or engraven eloquence, the 
memory of fruitless valour and unutterable woe. 

THE END 



_R. Clay 4" Sons, L((L, London S,- Bunyay. 



